


as red as blood, as twice as sweet

by thewinterose



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: BAMF Padmé Amidala, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Darth Vader Redemption, Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Jedi Padmé Amidala, Possessive Behavior, Slow Burn, Suitless Darth Vader
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:28:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22103431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewinterose/pseuds/thewinterose
Summary: Obi-Wan tilted his head, and a hint of a rueful smile showed through his beard. "You should have been a Jedi."— Matthew Stover, Revenge of the Sith NovelizationOr:Padmé Naberrie, a young Jedi Knight who survived the Great Purge, finds her past catching up to her in the form of the infamous Sith Lord Darth Vader.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Darth Vader
Comments: 179
Kudos: 278





	1. the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Hi again! So some of you may recognize me or this story. The truth is, I felt like I was going nowhere with the first draft. My planning was shoddy and my writing left a lot to be desired, but I always felt weird about the idea of outright abandoning this work. I loved the idea and I loved the plans that I had so recently I reworked everything and completed a whole new outline. So for those who know this story: welcome back! I hope you enjoy it!

_ "These violent delights have violent ends _

_ And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, _

_ Which as they kiss, consume" _

_— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet _

* * *

She can feel it as it happens, like a dark cloud descending over her, like a viper wrapping itself around her heart, her throat. 

She breaks out of her meditative state, pulse racing and eyes wide, searching fruitlessly in the Force to explain her sudden bone-chilling panic, but she finds it worryingly silent. Padme tries not to think of that old adage: _ “the calm before the storm,” _but she does so nonetheless.

She stands up slowly, hands shaking, fingers mindlessly smoothing her rumpled sheets. She briefly considers calling out to someone in this stark silence, but the viper around her throat steals her voice from her. It only heightens the anticipation; the violence in waiting. 

In this large, echoing Jedi Temple, there are no raucous noises. None of its usual laughter and chatter and gentle chidings. There is only the rushing, roaring pulse of her blood in her ears. Adding to the silence. Detracting from it.

And then there are the screams.

They start like a slow chorus. One sounding from the far reaches of the hall, filtering into her room, only detectable because she feels the fear behind it in the Force. Then it escalates. Instead of it being one scream, it’s suddenly hundreds. Thousands. Thousands of voices, male and female and those beyond such confines, echoing in her ears, bloodcurdling and _ real. _Accompanying it are the harsh, methodical stomping of boots. Soldiers. 

_ What are soldiers doing in the Jedi Temple? _ she thinks dumbly, forgetting for a moment that she, herself, is a soldier.

She’s spurred into action. Somehow she knows that she must leave, that whatever is going on outside of the walls of her room is a massacre. She can taste the rampant fear on her tongue, can feel the burn of blaster bolts against the skin of her back, can hear the hum of lightsabers. 

Padmé runs to her closet, grabbing a bag and shoving her meager belongings inside, clipping her lightsaber to her belt. Her fingers shake with every movement. The sounds of violence leaking into her room, muffled by the wood of her door. She trembles as she approaches it, not wanting to open it, not wanting to greet whatever it is outside, but knowing that she has to. 

She opens the door. 

A litter of corpses lay by her feet: gutted bodies, disembodied heads, turning the floor red with their blood. Horror replaces the panic. Heightens it. She wants to run back inside. She wants to sit down and cry. Padme remembers some of their faces. She had greeted them once while striding down this same hall. Now their eyes stare up at her, unseeing in death. 

She clutches her bag tighter and looks away from them, stepping over their still corpses and sprinting down the hall. There was no time to mourn them. 

With every step she makes, she finds another horror: more dead bodies, that of accomplished Masters and strong Knights, and worst still, younglings. At that last one, she has to close her eyes to block out the sight. Sometimes Master Yoda would ask her to help with the children, and she remembered their faces, how young and precocious they could be. 

Beneath the haze of her panic and pumping adrenaline, she thinks, _ Who would attack us like this? What’s strong enough to kill several Jedi Masters? _

When she rounds the corner, the sight that greets her stops her dead in her tracks: Troopers. Clone Troopers. Troopers that she had spent every day fighting beside, talking to, laughing with— shooting down more Jedi. 

She turns back around and crowds herself against a wall, her hand clutching at her heart, and her chest quivers as she processes the scene. The Jedi had been betrayed. The Republic has betrayed them. 

She doesn’t know how to move after this. She’s spent most of her teenage years fighting for their cause, believing in it, advocating for it in Separatist planets. Padmé held the concept of democracy close to her heart. Sometimes she wonders if she might’ve took on politics in other life. In a different reality. 

She shakes her head and clenches her jaw, moving herself beyond her crumbling ideologies. _ There is no such reality now, _she thinks firmly. Only the massacre she still has yet to escape from. 

She pushes herself from the wall and steels her nerves, reaching to the Light to center herself. Unclipping the saber from her belt, she slowly steps towards the edges of the wall, knees trembling. She peers around, attempting to look for any ways to escape from them unseen, but the small squadron forms a circle around the hall, blocking exists and nudging at the still bodies with their feet. The sight horrifies and enrages her. The idea of their battle companions treating her people— _ their friends!— _with such little respect inflaming her blood. 

The time for discretion is done then. Padmé rounds from behind the corner and ignites her saber, the sound drawing the Troopers attention from the corpses beneath them to her. 

Immediately they draw their blasters, shooting at her like it’s instinct. Padmé ducks the first volley of shots, the blue plasma of her saber sailing over her head and blocking their assault. She slides under them, twisting around and slicing at the backs of their armor before landing in a crouch. 

She jumps up and moves quickly, spinning around them in fast circles, her lightsaber cutting at their arms, their legs, their backs. Despite herself, she cannot find it within her to kill them. Everytime she sees their blank, unfeeling helmets, she remembers every laugh she shared with the 212th. 

With every last Trooper either disarmed or knocked out, Padmé turns to flee, hopping over their prone bodies. 

She decides to head to the hangar bay, knowing that her ship stood as her best chance for escape. A plan already starts forming in her head and she feels a bud of hope bloom in her chest, driving away the ice-cold dread from before. Many have died today, she can feel it, and were she not so moved by adrenaline she might have chosen to die with them. 

_ But many is not all, _she thinks, sprinting around a corner, forcing her feet to move faster. There were millions of Jedi in every star system, in every conceivable nook and cranny in the galaxy. It was impossible to kill all of them, no matter how powerful the Republic might be or how far their forces stretched, the Jedi simply outnumbered them. 

Padmé would escape. She would flee on her ship and hide in Republic-free space until she was safe enough to contact other Jedi, and once she did, she would find them. Anything after that can be decided by the members of the Council, Padme only has to survive until then. 

She almost sighs in relief as she spots the opening to the hangar in the distance. More Troopers file the walls around her and she deflects their blaster bolts with a delicate flick of her wrist and a decisive arc of her saber. She can feel the bud of hope blossom into something more decisive, flowering along her insides. 

_ I’m almost there, _ she thinks around the frantic beat of her heart and her pumping adrenaline. _ Just a little more. _

Suddenly her chest stills. The oppressive, suffocating darkness that overcame her earlier, slamming into her, making her falter slightly. Padmé glances around frantically, looking for the source of such a repulsive Force presence, but finds only blank Trooper masks. 

_ It doesn’t matter, _ she decides, feet heavy and stomach cold. She doesn’t want to find out what it is anyway. She would rather live and never feel it’s aura again. 

Her fear makes her desperate, and she sprints to her ship: a smooth, sleek Naboo Starfighter gifted to her years ago by her master. 

She approaches the ship, panic making her fidgety, and she shakes dangerously as she presses on the button to open the door. The presence becomes stronger and Padmé nearly sobs as she feels it approaching, a terrible pressure constraining around her throat. She can’t breathe with it near. She can barely think beyond the icy dread that it instills in her by its proximity alone. 

The door finally opens and Padmé cries out in relief. She moves to rush inside but a voice almost freezes her in place, and immediately she knows who— _ what _ this is and what it did. 

_ “Stop her.” _

Two words. Two simple words, and years of war and death and the blood on her own hands have never made her feel the way this _ thing _ does. She nearly goes mad with desperation just to get away from it. 

Padmé comes to her senses and runs inside her ship, skidding to the pilot's chair and blindly pressing on the ship’s control buttons to power it up. Every second she spends not flying, not far away from that monster and the veritable tomb it made of her home, is one that she finds wasted. 

Finally, the ship starts flying and Padmé grabs the lever, yanking it back and and speeding forth, the city lights becoming blurs around her. She can feel the vice around her heart and throat relaxing with every inch that stretches between her and the Temple. 

But still. 

A sudden awareness trickles into her, sinking into her stomach and sparking her skin. She feels compelled to look behind her and before she’s even aware of it, she is, catching the eyes of a figure shrouded in black. Even from this distance, she can see it. She doesn’t know how, but she can. She doesn’t look away from it. She doesn’t want to. Padmé wants it to feel every stinging, scathing ounce of her supreme hatred and contempt. She knows that it’s behind this. She’s never felt more certain about anything else in her life. 

Padmé only turns away from the window once she finds herself in the blank emptiness of space, and something visceral seems to fade away from her, leaving her exhausted and worn. She sinks down into her seat and sets the controls on autopilot, forcing her mind into a relaxed state of numbness and peace. She reaches out to the Force. 

Her concentration nearly breaks once she becomes fully immersed in it, her very soul flinching at the overwhelming Darkness that permeates around her. She has that horrible feeling again but she pushes through it, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge what it means. 

_ My master, _ she thinks. _ I have to find my master. _

Padmé latches on to their mental link and cautiously prods at it, her golden presence inching along, searching for him, for any hint that he might be alive. She meets a wall, a blankness, an empty space where he might have once been, and she bites her lip hard, pushing harder, nudging at it desperately. 

“Please,” she whispers, heart lodged in her throat, choking her. _"__Please.” _

Nothing. Nothing budges or moves or answers her. A wound stands where he once did. Padmé feels her breath hitch, tears in her eyes threatening to undue her, but she refuses to let go of her hope. She has nothing else. 

She reaches out for any and all major connections. To Master Windu. To Master Plo Koon. To Aayla. To Master Yoda. And still nothing. There is nothing. The Force is empty of all those who provided its Light, and Padme stands as its sole disciple. 

The dam breaks and she crumbles, collapsing from her seat and landing in a heap onto the floor, shaking from the force of her sobs, held down by the weight of her grief. Images that she didn’t fully process in the Temple bombard her, horrifying her with their intensity and morbidity. She sees the lopped off heads of Jedi Masters, eyes open and unseeing, their bodies thrown a scant few feet away. She sees sliced open backs, the disembodied arms of Jedi Knights, the gutted little corpses of younglings, running the floor red with their blood. 

Padmé grasps onto the sides of her head and covers her ears, blocking out the sounds of screams and blaster bolts and Trooper boots, a medley of blood and genocide rewinding in a never-ending loop. She shuts her eyes tightly and screams herself hoarse, unwilling to bear its noise. 

Buried under the immensity of her grief, Padmé does not move for hours. Her body a sad, heaving lump upon cold durasteel floors.

And it is here where she accepts the terrible fact of her new reality: she is the last Jedi and that _ monster _ killed them all.


	2. the calm before the storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Sexual Harassment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm riding this inspiration wave as far as it takes me. enjoy!

_ "-haunt me, then!" _

_— Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights _

* * *

She’s running out of fuel. 

Padmé doesn’t even bat an eye at this. It seems very typical and en vogue for her to run low on fuel in Imperial-run space— territory in which she is a fugitive of the highest order, and were she to actually be caught, almost certainly to be executed at the nearest block. 

Padmé checks her scanners, trying to see which of the planets closest by would be safest to land in, and, really, if there were any at all. She sighs. 

She knows that she should’ve stopped and taken refuge in any of the Outer Rim planets as soon as she escaped Coruscant, but somehow the idea of doing so, of giving up and hiding, safely settling herself into the outskirts and pretending that who she was never real, erasing her history as a Jedi Knight, felt _ wrong _somehow. There was also the added risk of turning any planet she took refuge in as a target for extermination, and that reality struck her as far more unbearable. And so for the last two years, Padmé hopped from planet to planet, from isolated moon to isolated moon. She took up odd jobs for credits, and never stayed in a place for too long, lest she were to risk capture. 

In truth, Padmé hasn’t been alone for ages. Her paranoia and desperate urge to survive have been her constant companions. They dwell within her chest, lie nestled between her heart and ribs. She wouldn’t know what to do without them.

Her ship gives a sudden lurch and Padmé hurriedly looks towards her fuel indicator, finding it nearly depleted. She groans, knowing that she has neither the choice nor the luxury of spending her time finding a nice, isolated planet. She needs to land now. 

She looks outside the window, spotting a large blue, green, and brown planet up ahead. Even just the very image of it leaves a sour taste in her mouth. Corellia. One of the most populated Imperial planets in the system. How quaint. 

Corellia also had the illustrious honor of hosting one of the most infamous galactic underworlds in history. They were overrun with smugglers and bounty hunters and spice carriers. They even had this particular problem under the rule of the Republic, and although Padmé was not intimately familiar with the lifestyle, she had seen enough of it in her brief trip there as a Padawan to be disillusioned with the planet as a whole. 

Her ship gives another abrupt lurch, and she taps her fingers along the control pad. She moves her hand over the lever to control the ship and, after a moment, brings it down, lowering her ship into the atmosphere. 

It’s fine. She’s obviously been in tough situations like this before. All she has to do is get the fuel and get out. It won’t be too difficult to go unnoticed. She’s been practicing stealth all her life. This is hardly enough to be considered a challenge.

What Padmé doesn’t think about, however, is how little she’s been having to practice those particular skills. How unaccustomed she’s become to populated cities and communicating with others. The instincts are there, along with the natural skill, but they have become rusty over time. Brittle and easy to see through.

Regardless, she’s never been a coward. She steels her nerves and refuses to flinch, even as her ship shakes once it breaks through orbit. She flies low, trying to look for any landing platforms, and lands shakily in one of the emptier ones, her fuel tank finally on empty. 

She sits in silence for a few moments, attempting to gain her bearings. Her fingers tremble and her heart twists and speeds with the leaden weight of her anxiety. She tries to reaffirm her confidence in herself, in her skills, in her master’s teachings, but she feels so distant from those memories now. Aayla’s smile and Cody’s staunch stoicism and her master’s gentle chidings seem like the recollections of a different girl; one more naive and certain of her place in the universe. Padmé now was a creature of rampant fear and suspicion. Every eye was searching. Every person was a spy. Every whisper was in her name. 

_ “Stop her.” _

It’s been two years and those words_ —that voice— _ have never left her. She can still feel it hanging over her; a constant presence. A ready-made monster put in place just to make her lose sleep, lose hope. She’ll never forget the way it made her feel: caged and lost, desperate down to the very bones of her. All these years and that _ monster _has stayed by her side, bounded her to it, has haunted every nightmare. 

Her heart shakes in her chest, and she abruptly stands up, abandoning all thoughts of that dark creature. It doesn’t matter anyway. The last she heard, the Emperor’s enforcer was brutally suppressing a rebellion on Jedha. It clearly was too busy to be hunting her down.

_ But, but- _something seems to beseech within her. Padmé shuts it down. She doesn’t have the time to be frightened now anyway. 

She stands up and clips her saber, patting it once just to affirm that it’s there, and strides towards her small closet. She grabs her robe, the only one she has that’s not so obviously Jedi, and flips the hood over her head. 

For a moment, she allows herself to begrudge her meager belongings. Materialism. Her most innocuous and yet most apparent flaw as a Jedi. Her master used to tease her about it. 

She pulls on the hatch to open the door, and winces as that tell-tale hiss sounds, followed immediately by the light provided by Corellia’s sun. It seems that her fuel tank didn’t even give her the luxury of going into a densely populated planet during the nighttime hours. 

_ Oh, well, _she thinks, patting her concealed saber and stepping down the landing platform. Her circumstances have certainly been worse. It’s not like her to complain over trivialities like the time of day anyway. 

She hops off the ship and looks around, finding the area to be sparsely populated, which makes her feel the slightest bit better. Towards the end of the dock, she spots a group of seedy looking men, rugged and grungy, and decides that it’s probably best to avoid them if possible. She would bet her saber that they were smugglers of some sort. Or maybe even overconfident racer pilots. Those were a dime in a dozen on Corellia. 

Padmé starts forward, adjusting her hood, and walking with a practiced nonchalance past the group of men. As she walks by, she can vaguely hear their chatter slowly die off, and their eyes are a heavy brand as they rest upon her, curious and searching. 

_ Don’t panic, _ she thinks, just the slightest bit unsettled. _ They’re only trying to look under your hood. They don’t know who you are. _

She unthinkingly breathes a sigh of relief once she’s finally alone, slightly unnerved at herself for it. She doesn’t know when she became so… antisocial. 

_ It doesn’t matter. _She furrows her brows, chewing on her lower lip. She hopes that this habit of hers will end soon, the way she mourns herself and who she used to be before everything happened. 

She walks out into an open market, the heavy scent of sweat and metal invading her senses. If she closes her eyes, if she lets the chatter die out, she can almost imagine a different scene: one of Clone Troopers and blaster bolts and the hum of two lightsabers igniting- 

_ But, but- _

Those were not happy memories. Not at the time and definitely not in retrospect. This was another habit she was learning that she had to break, her tendency to romanticize. 

Padmé shakes her head roughly, rapidly growing annoyed at herself. She was supposed to be getting fuel, not reminiscing over depressing battle memories that she had gone over half a million times. That she had held close and polished until they shone with a rosy hue; a yellow one. 

She squares her shoulders and marches determinedly forward, her eyes straight ahead. In the distance, she spots what looks like a stand littered with various ship parts, the rickety wood stained horribly by oil, and figures that this is as good as it’ll get with the time crunch she’s under. 

She starts toward it, but a sudden warmth wraps around her wrist and yanks her back. She yelps, startled, and whips around to look at the person who halted her progress. Almost immediately, she winces. 

A young man. One of the seedy looking ones she had passed by just a few moments ago. The backdrop of the sun against the back of his head cloaked his face in a slight shadow. He was grinning at her. 

“Are you lost?” 

She steps back just a smidge, confused. “I’m sorry?” 

He steps closer, making up for the distance between them. The heat of his palm against her wrist is scalding. She had forgotten how warm skin could feel against her own. 

“I asked you if you were lost,” he says. 

Padmé ducks her head and averts her eyes, suddenly hyper-aware of his proximity, of his interest in her. Her heart starts to pound furiously, and it takes every trained instinct she has not to pull herself away from him and sprint in the opposite direction. 

“I’m not lost. I’m fine. Thank you for the concern.” She moves to walk away, but he seizes her arm again, jerking her back into his space. She feels her hood slip from her head, can vaguely sense the way it hangs limply from her crown, caught on one of her curls. 

His eyes land squarely upon her face and she blushes, embarrassed and uncomfortable. She tries to subtly pull away from him once again, but his grip on her arm is tight; tight enough that if she were to attempt to forcibly remove him, she’d draw suspicion from the seemingly endless sea of eyes around them. 

“Let me go, please,” she says quietly, trying not to grit her teeth. 

He steps closer, his chest nearly touching her own. Her own heart nearly seizes with panic. 

_ Too close, too close, too- _

“Who would I be to abandon a girl like you in a planet like this? You’re too pretty to be by yourself.” 

She clenches her jaw, fisting her free hand. Padmé schools her face into an expression of cold passivity, forcing herself to be calm. “I’m fine, thank you. I really don’t need help. In fact, I’ve been to Corellia before and-“ 

She feels a weight settle onto the side of her thigh and slide, fingers drifting upwards. She instinctively looks down and sees his dirty, rugged hands traveling towards her belt, slick and uncompromising. 

She gasps, horrified, stomach bottomed out and heart racing, and jerks herself away from him. His hand slides across her thigh, toward her hip, as she moves back. 

“Don’t touch me!” she snaps, shaking with rage.

He just huffs, his regretfully handsome face twisted into a leering sneer, and something about it cuts into her. 

She takes another step back. 

“Don’t be like that, I was only joking, just-“ 

Her already frazzled nerves spark, panic flaring into indignation. By her sides, her fingers twitch with the urge to reach for her saber and slice his smirk in half. 

“Fuck you! Get away from me-!”

“Fuck me, huh? Well-“ 

She huffs and turns around, angrily yanking her hood back over her face and turning towards the market. She can sense a subtle curiosity from the crowd, can practically hear the whispers echo in her ears. They will make assumptions and they will remember her, maybe for just a moment. Maybe just a flash of her hair or her eye color, an empty remembrance of her skin tone, and the thought nearly drives her back to her ship, fuel or no fuel, but Padmé harshly shoves down the panic. 

She doesn’t have time to be emotional. Jedi are above such emotions anyway. What is she, to be so discomforted by a simple ruffian, by the idea of being noticed. In any case, she’s fine. She doubts Corellia has any shortage of petite human females with brown hair and eyes. 

After allowing herself a few moments to calm down and regain her bearings, Padmé starts walking towards the stand again. When she stops in front of it, she has to lift herself on her tiptoes slightly to look beyond the giant hunk of metal teetering on the flat top. 

A man sits on the opposite end, his eyes glued to a datapad, his feet raised towards the metal structure, his toes barely reaching it. 

The sight is so strange, so comically unusual, that Padmé has the rare urge to laugh. She doesn’t, of course. It would be rude.

“Excuse me, sir?” 

The man doesn’t respond. Beneath her hood, Padmé attempts a polite smile. 

“Sir?”

The man glances up from his screen laser-quick, grunts, and then looks back down. She takes this as her cue to continue. 

“Hi, I was wondering if I could buy a tank of fuel from you? I’m in a bit of a rush right now and-“ 

“I ain’t sell fuel here, girlie.” 

Her eyes dart behind him where three giant tankards of ship fuel sit. He looks up at her once again and she stares at him meaningfully. 

“I only sell those to people who can afford it, which”- He gives her body a single once over, his eyes lingering doubtfully over her clothes- “I doubt you can.” 

It takes everything for her not to screech at him in offense, not to lean over and wipe that insipid, judgmental expression off his face. She had been on this planet for maybe ten minutes and already she was infuriated with every single resident she had come across. How could people be so _ rude? _

After much effort and many slow breaths, she continues, ignoring his insult. “I have money.” 

“How much?”

“Enough to purchase ship fuel if it was reasonably priced.”

“Ha!” The man’s beady little eyes scrunch up in amusement and he crosses his arms. “What’s your ship?” 

It is here where Padmé hesitates. In spite of her better sense, she had decided to forgo the rational decision to sell her ship and buy something more obviously civilian. Normal. Not so blatantly Jedi. She had tried once, mostly because she needed the money and the anonymity, but she couldn’t go through with it. It was full of too many memories, a relic of her old life, of her Order, and the generosity of her master. Sometimes, when overcome with the depth of her sorrow and melancholy, she had imagined that she could still see the white flash of her master’s smile as he presented it to her; could feel his arms around her, hands patting her back awkwardly as she threw herself at him in gratitude. 

“A-A Naboo Cruiser,” she says, deciding to lie just a bit. The design of the ships are roughly the same. At least, she thinks they are.

The vendor whistles, leaning forward now like he’s interested. “That’s a fancy ship.” 

“Thank you, sir.” 

“How much fuel are you trying to get?”

Padmé tilts her head, studying the fuel tanks consideringly. After a few moments, she says, “At least a month’s worth.” It was perhaps asking for too much, but she didn’t want to stop at any planets for a while. 

“A month’s worth? That won’t be cheap, I’ll tell you that right now.” 

She winces slightly, wringing her fingers. “I understand. I just need a cost, please.”

The vendor leans back into his rickety chair and looks up, his eyes moving back and forth like he was calculating, although Padmé felt that he already knew. 

“650 credits.”

Her eyes bug out and she nearly collapses against the stand. _ “650?!” _

He grins at her, his beady eyes glittering. “For a month, yes.”

“That’s ridiculous! I need fuel right now! I-!”

She stops. Something settles over the air—over _ her— _that freezes her blood and sets her heart alight with panic. A familiar darkness, the same one that she felt that fateful day at the Jedi Temple, the same one that she’s felt every night in her dreams, hanging over her like a black shroud. 

She can practically feel the intensity of it settle into the very core of her, stinging her and stirring that deep, primal desperation for survival. 

Her hands fly to her chest, her fingers pressing into the hollow of her throat, the vendor behind her and his greed completely forgotten. 

“Vader,” she whispers, and the name feels like acid on her tongue. 

Despite how hard she’s tried, she never managed to forget. 

* * *

An Imperial officer approaches his commander and holds out his hand, his fingers trembling around a datapad.

“My lord.” 

The commander grabs it, holding it up to his hooded face and looks at the screen. His leather-gloved fist nearly shatters the device. 

A young woman, skin tinted blue and face blurry from the security footage, dwelled within the screen, her identity unmistakable. Her delicate features were scrunched up in disgust instead of fear and her brown hair was longer than what it used to be, but Vader has never forgotten. He hums in satisfaction.

“We found her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so happy with the reception this story has been getting so far! you guys are lovely <3333


	3. duel of the fates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> enter the villain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't know man. i really just wanted to write Vader.
> 
> enjoy!

_"By the pricking of my thumbs,_

_Something wicked this way comes."_

_— William Shakespeare, Macbeth._

* * *

“Hey, girl!”

She’s broken out of her shock at the sound of the vendor’s voice, and were she inclined to think beyond her sudden gut-wrenching dread, she might have registered the slight concern in his tone. 

Padmé spins around, her breath twisting and her stomach churning and her fingers trembling. She rushes toward the stand and almost throws herself upon it, not trusting her legs to keep her from collapsing. 

“Please,” she gasps. “Please, I need the fuel now!”

His face smooths back into some measure of calm, but through the Force she can practically feel him attempt to work through his confusion. “You have to pay for it! I don’t give away this stuff for free!” 

She nearly cries. Her desperation steals her voice from her, and she fumbles to try to explain what’s happening. But how can she? How can she ever accurately describe what happened that day and the terror she’s lived with since then, trapped in chest, rooting itself along her insides. 

“Please,” she begs again. “You don't understand. I have to leave! If I don’t then he’ll-“ 

The vendor stands up abruptly from his chair and pushes away from her, his eyes wide and slightly panicked. 

“I don’t know what your dealings are, girl, but I won’t help anyone who has the enemies that you do. I don’t need the damn hassle.” 

His point-blank refusal to help her somehow cleaves her heart in two; she doesn’t know how to deal with it, how to process his utter lack of compassion. 

She moves herself away shakily and crosses her arms, holding her chest to keep everything from spilling out. “If you don’t help me I’ll die,” she breathes.

She feels vulnerable down to her bones, her blood churning with sorrow and hurt. The idea of seeing Vader again, of facing him_ —it!— _ after what that creature did, repulses her. She doesn’t even want revenge anymore. The anger is still there, of course, it always will be. But Padmé quickly grew weary at the notion of killing her Order’s executioner years ago. What point did that have? What were her chances of succeeding? Padmé owed her people more than to die a pointless death, than to die with anger and rage in her heart, closer to the Dark Side than she had ever been in life. The idea makes her sick. 

In the end, she doesn’t want to meet with Vader again; to have the last word and to hold his bleeding heart in her hands. She just wants to be _ safe. _

“Please,” she says, turning towards him and wearing the full weight of her emotions._ “Please.” _

He falters, visibly softening. He moves to open his mouth to speak, but her attention has been stolen once again. 

She whips around, her fingers held to her lips, and watches as an Imperial Class Star Destroyer lowers into the atmosphere, a chill settling into her blood. She doesn’t know if it’s because of her overwrought imagination, but she can practically feel the presence of the Dark Lord within the ship, eager and bloodthirsty; a massive malevolent energy she doesn’t think that she could ever fully drive away. 

“Miss?”

Fisting her shaking fingers, Padmé turns back around and lifts her hand. She doesn’t want to do this. She’s never wanted to do this, but now she’s being afforded little choice. With Vader here, it’s inevitable for her identity to be discovered as it is. 

She reaches out to the Force and wills it around her. Padmé hears the sound of several horrified gasps, but she doesn’t let it deter her. When she opens her eyes, one of the tankwards of fuel is held within her hands, it’s weight significantly minimized by her use of the Force. 

Padmé looks towards the vendor and sees his widened eyes, his slackened mouth. 

“A Jedi,” he breathes, evidently shocked. His eyes then switch back to the Star Destroyer and his expression hardens. He turns his attention back to her, posture stiff and fists clenched, and although Padmé can just barely sense it, she can feel his overwhelming fear. She doesn’t blame him. He could be killed at even just the whisper of him aiding her. 

Still. 

“Thank you,” she says, voice thin, lowering her hood and staring at him fully. “I’m sorry.” 

She turns and takes off in the other direction. 

Vaguely, she can feel the small buzz of confusion that passes through crowd at the appearance of the ship and at the sight of her running through the streets. The familiar panic at being seen, at being noticed by those who would recognize her, sinks in, but she refuses to entertain it. In the end, her efforts were clearly in vain. Someone reported her. There’s no other reason as to why Vader would be here. 

_ Wasn’t he supposed to on Jedha? _she thinks, turning a corner. 

Not too far ahead, she can see the opening to the hangar bay, and she pushes her legs to go faster. Vader’s approaching presence lingers like a parasite in her mind, burrowing under her skin like a disease. 

When she sees her ship, she holds the fuel tankard tighter to herself and uses the Force to lengthen her strides. She’s at it in moments, scrambling to open the hatch and pour the noxious liquid inside. 

Padmé only gets only a quarter of the tank full before she feels the ship land, it’s movements against the earth rumbling under the soles of her feet; it’s a massive ship. 

And it was brought here to carry the monster who would execute her. 

She harshly bites at her lip and heaves the tankard higher, trying to force all of the gasoline inside. Her arms shake with the strain, her trembling compounded by her churning anxiety. Her strength feels obsolete, drained. A part of her wants to lie down and accept her fate_ —she’s so tired— _ but a larger part of her is vibrating with the urge to escape, her blood restless and jittery within her veins. 

So consumed she is by this task, that she barely notices the hoard of stomping boots behind her. She whips around, the hunk of durasteel still held against her chest. 

A squadron of Stormtroopers; it almost hurts to look at them. Her breath twists inside her, and her fingers tighten around the tankard, shielding her heart. 

She wants to step back, to pretend that this is a different time, to greet them as friends and to hug them flustered as she did when she was young and innocent, starry-eyed and so, so brave. 

Padmé stands before them a coward now, lost in the haze of memories, standing amongst a sea of ghosts. 

“You’re surrounded,” one at the front says, snapping her out of it. “Surrender yourself peacefully and this won’t have to end too quickly.” His hand tightens around his blaster. 

The alternative is, of course, to die at Vader’s hand, which she supposes is to happen regardless of whatever this soldier says. 

An old instinct rises up and before she’s even fully aware of it, she steps forward, ignoring the way their blasters move with her. 

“You don’t want to shoot me,” she says calmly. “You want to let me go.” 

Some of the Stormtroopers’ blasters lower slowly, drooping at the edge of dazed fingers, but the one in front growls, the sound turned unnatural with the voice modulator. 

“I can’t fall for your Jedi’s tricks, _ traitor!” _he spits. “Do you think that we haven’t been trained by Lord Vader!”

Padmé wouldn’t doubt it, but it was still worth a try. She glances off the side, her mind going a mile a minute. If she tried to enter the ship now, she knows that they would just shoot her. If she managed to get past their blasters, they’d simply get her with the Star Destroyer, and precious though her ship might have been, she was under no illusions about its speed against a newly made Imperial ship. 

She takes another step forward, turning her eyes towards the Trooper in the front. Looking at him, it was almost easy to pretend that under his helmet, it was Cody who looked up at her. 

“Please,” she says. “I’ll never bother the Empire again. I’ll hide in some remote corner of the galaxy and never breathe another word of the Jedi. We could finally die out.”

The soldier stabs the blaster in her direction; she flinches back. “Why should I believe you.” It’s not a question. 

“Because,” she says, taking another step forward. She tries to say more, wants to, but the words curdle up on her tongue, die along her throat. She has nothing more to say. This was a fruitless effort anyway, and she was a fool to even beg. She should’ve maintained her pride. 

“You could keep blinking those wide eyes at me if you want. It’s not gonna do anything.” He makes a motion with his hand and the other Troopers’ blasters raise in unison. “It’s not me you should be begging to anyway.” 

The reminder of Vader almost makes her shiver. She had tried to forget about him. 

“Where is he?” she asks, hating the way her voice shakes. 

“He’s coming.”

Desperation rises within her like a rolling wave, disturbing her fragile peace. She can feel the imagined grip around her throat, his saturated darkness choking her. She can’t go through that again. Images of cut down younglings race through her mind, strewn about limbs covered in blood. 

Her limbs. Her blood. 

She heaves a breath, her vision going blurry around the edges. She chances a look at the soldiers before her, the tankard shifting uncertainly in her grip. They look upon with their blank helmets. Their Stormtrooper helmets. Their clone trooper helmets; the yellow stripes of the 212th. 

Padmé gasps, and some primal instinct within her wants to stop looking at those helmets, to stop seeing these soldiers and their familiar faces. 

She throws the durasteel tank at the nearest one, barely registering the way that he crumples to the floor. The other Troopers whip out their blasters and start shooting, and it’s muscle memory that has her bring out her saber, blue plasma deflecting blaster bolts. 

All of this is too familiar. It makes her jittery and her skin crawl. Just moments ago, she had looked upon these masks with an old affection. How is it then that memories can simultaneously be so sweet and so dreadful? 

She runs forward and spins around, cutting into their backs. Several soldiers fall to the floor, bleeding from their wounds, injured but not dead, and Padmé doesn’t even consider why even now she can’t find it within herself to pull that trigger. 

She races past them, using the Force to make her faster. Once she’s out of the hangar bay, she looks forward, eyes blindly looking for a means of escape. A crowd of people stand before her, horrified at her presence, at the danger she suddenly presents to them. The sorrow that rushes through is sharp, intense. Not too long ago, these same people might have looked upon her with reverence. The difference in attitude is still hard to adjust to. 

_ It doesn’t matter. _

She rushes forward and turns out to a less crowded area, ignoring the people gaping at her back. 

Using the Force to hasten her speed, she sprints aimlessly, eyes darting around to find another escape route, another path to survival. Her master always advised her to live in the present, but to think towards the future. Padmé tries to keep that advice in mind now. She couldn’t afford to just hide arbitrarily until the Imperial forces left; what were the chances of that happening anyway. 

“Please,” she whispers through frantic breaths, directing a prayer to the stars. “Lead me to safety.” _To life, _are the words she doesn’t say. 

She turns into an alleyway, shutting off her saber to make more room for herself, and, for once, thanks the Force for her diminutive height; she doesn’t know how she’d be able to fit in so easily otherwise. 

Once in, she allows herself to stop and take a moment to catch her breath. Her lungs felt ragged and inflamed, her endurance low from two years spent with practically little to no physical activity. Once again, she curses her circumstances. She used to be able to run and fight endlessly for days on end. Now all that it took to tire her out was a simple sprint through half a market place. The thought drowns her in shame. 

Padmé scowls, shaking her head. A Jedi had no time for shame nor fear nor anything. All she needed to have was faith in the Force’s will to lead her to survival. Now, she simply needs to find a way to discover the route to that eventuality. 

She paces around a bit, scanning the area she was in. She’s in the apex of the strange alleyway; it’s design much more reminiscent of a labyrinth than a straight path. 

_ This is a good thing, _she thinks. If Troopers happened to find her, the narrow structure of the path would slow them down. The many walls around them could serve as a good hiding place for her as they struggled to get through. 

A small stream of hope trickles in from her chest, warming her. It may have have not been the best or the most thought-out, but she has a plan. Padmé has found that she thrives when under a set strategy; she didn’t much like spontaneity. 

There’s a sudden sounding of heavy footsteps, and Padmé immediately snaps to, whipping out her saber and tensing. 

_ It’s just the Troopers, _she thinks, but a strange sensation slams into her, blurring her vision and leaving her breathless. Her knees shake and her chest heaves with the effort it takes to breathe; it’s so painful, every inch of it stings her. 

It’s that phantom grip again: locked around her throat, sliding up through her curls, caressing the skin of her face. 

The Dark Side. 

_ Vader. _

She mouths it without meaning to, her tongue curling around the vowels of his name with an equal measure of disdain and fear. That primal instinct to run takes over her again, and she looks around frantically, trying to find a path to freedom; a way to escape his vile presence. 

Padmé dashes through the narrow hall and hurriedly shoves herself into a compact slot, the opening barely large enough for her to comfortably fit through.

Her palm sweats around her saber. She still feels him coming. 

The footsteps are closer, the sound deafening beside the roaring of her blood. Her skin vibrates; she can feel his proximity in her gut. 

She bites back a whimper at the sudden hum of a lightsaber, her grip vice-like around her own. Padmé wants to sink into the ground, to disappear. 

She nestles herself further into her hiding place, pressing her back flat against the rock wall. Briefly, she considers using the Force to vault over the ledge of the wall to escape, but decides against it. While that may grant her a moment of freedom, it certainly didn’t guarantee that Vader wouldn’t eventually catch up and slaughter her instantly. For now, this was her best chance. It gave her an element of surprise.

The lightsaber whirs, the sounds changing with every movement he makes. 

_ He must be swinging it. _

“I know you’re there.”

Her eyes widen, her gut clenching as she registers the sound of his voice. Her legs feel porous and brittle, bound to give out. It takes all the willpower within her not to collapse onto the ground. 

“I felt your presence the moment we landed. The same presence I felt that day at the Temple, so light and pure.” Her palm digs into the flesh of her mouth, keeping her silent. She can practically hear his sneer. “It _ disgusted _ me.” 

His lightsaber slams boisterously into the wall near her, it’s hum a roar into the still air, and she can barely contain the gasp that she emits against her fingers. 

_ Please, please, please, _she thinks desperately, turning watery eyes to the heavens above. She was the Light’s last acolyte. She could not allow herself to die out. 

“I allowed you to escape that day, do you know that? That day was supposed to be my triumph, and yet, despite that, the Jedi proved themselves to be endlessly disappointing. Your Order grew arrogant and stagnant. They were too easy to destroy. There was nothing satisfying about it. And so I created for myself a hunt to embark on when you fled.” 

Padmé barely notices the tears that sting at the corners of her eyes. _ Satisfying? _ Order 66 made that day a living hell for her, a never-ending nightmare that she’ll have to endure for the rest of her life, and he was treating it like a game? Like a trivial activity that he found that he didn’t enjoy as much as he thought he would. It’s disgusting. It makes her stomach sink, her heart bleed, her blood roar with anger. 

She bites down on her lip hard, fighting down the urge to jump out and attack him viciously. He was most likely trying to get that reaction out of her. Padmé wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. 

“And so I let you go,” he continues. For a moment she allows herself to consider his voice, finding that it was as deep as she expected, although not nearly as… mechanical. Some part of her was convinced that Darth Vader may have been some kind of droid. The possibility that he might not be makes her strangely uncomfortable. 

“Perhaps it was foolhardy on my end, but it gave me purpose. And, since you probably won’t live long enough to speak of this to anyone else, it made me… excited— this hunt that you presented. It was a challenge.”

He gives a huff of a laugh, the sound dark. Sinister. Also distressingly human. 

Despite herself, she fidgets where she stands. 

“But after two years, I grew weary. You were not a challenge. You were a coward. A _ hermit. _Even your insipid master might have presented more excitement.” Padmé fights not to leap out from where she stands, her heart lurching at his mention of Obi-Wan. 

The pain there is still raw, still real. He probably knows that. 

_ Not yet, not yet! _she urges herself. 

The slide of his boots across the gravel is deafening, his proximity nearing. He could have been just around the corner. The mere idea of it makes her whimper deep in her throat. 

“Two years ago I decided to hunt you.”

A red flash. A moment of dizzying clarity. A sinking sensation of _ this is it, this is where it ends. _A black leather glove seizes her arm and drags her out from the crevice she previously made her safe haven. 

A large, dark figure moves his grip from her arm to her throat in a lightning-quick movement, and she’s almost too terrified to even register to pressure of his palm against her larynx. 

“I’m tired of it now,” he growls through unseen lips, his entire face cloaked in shadow from beneath a hood. It only serves to make him look even more dangerous, even more sinister. Like a creature from nightmares.

Did she expect anything different?

“Do you have any last words, Jedi?” he asks, his grip tightening around her throat, locking away anything she might’ve wanted to say deep inside. 

It’s fine. It’s just as well. 

With a trembling hand, Padmé calls to the Force and wills her saber to her hand, igniting it in a flash and directing it towards his gut. 

Vader jumps back, his reflexes predictably quick. He stares at her for a long moment, and although she cannot see it, she can practically feel his eyes roving over her tensed form, lingering over the sneer on her face. 

He twirls his saber and lowers himself into a stance, a hand outstretched towards her. “So you’ve decided to fight then,” he growls, his blood fever filtering into her, poisoning her. “Good.”

They circle each other for a long moment, tension stretched unbearably thin between them. She feels it riding on the skin of her teeth, sparking life and adrenaline deep within her. Neither of them wants to be the first to strike. 

Finally, after a few breathless seconds, Vader twitches, his left boot shifting, and before she can even process it, he’s a blur of towering obsidian, his saber a red streak. 

Padmé barely manages to jump back, her heart a skittering mass in her throat. Her arm shakes as she holds up her lightsaber to block his strike; his strength was terrifying. 

He backs up and unleashes himself upon her again. It takes everything within her to avoid his attacks, to hop around him and stay in his blind spot like an irritating pest. 

Her adrenaline fuels her speed and strength, helps her stay on the defensive. She narrowly avoids his next hit, not even bothering to meet it herself, knowing that it would only tire her out faster. 

He feints, lowering himself before lunging at her, his saber raised over his shoulder. Padmé gasps, dropping herself and sliding between his open legs, swiping her blade at his thigh. Her arm stings where the gravel bites into exposed flesh, but the flare of victory she feels when she finally manages to draw blood dampens the pain. 

She rolls back onto her feet just in time to meet Vader’s next strike, his anger flooding the air between them. Somehow, it heightens her own, and for the first time, she comes for him, ducking under his arm and aiming for his side. 

Vader senses her intention. He spins around her, his movements simultaneously sharp and elegant, and moves behind her, grabbing her arm and squeezing her wrist hard enough for her to drop her saber. 

She twists in his grip, kicking and biting at him like a rabid animal, her teeth bared. A well-aimed kick at his upper thigh— right where she stabbed him— has him dropping her with a drawn out hiss. 

Padmé barely manages to hop back to her feet and grab her lightsaber before he’s on her again, furious and deadly. Once more, they are reduced to their cat and mouse game, with Padmé skipping away from his fatal strikes and Vader lunging for her like some feral beast. 

Her heart hammers painfully against her chest. Already she was growing tired and Vader seemed to be filled with limitless energy; with every hit she gave, he came back twice as hard and ten times more angrily. 

He really was going to kill her. There would be no negotiating or charming persuasions on her end; her audience was hardly willing to even stop to _ breathe! _

Padmé twirls away from another strike, panting harshly, feeling as though the insides of her lungs were bleeding.

Vader holds back, spinning his saber in a lazy arc as they circle one another again. He gives another quick slash—too quickly for her to avoid— and laughs as blood trickles sluggishly down her temple. 

“What’s wrong, Jedi?” He sneers, dark amusement suffusing from every inch of him, burning her— everything about him burns her. “Are you frightened?”

Padmé snarls at him, gripping her saber tightly, wanting to cleave him in two. She doesn’t deign to answer him. She has nothing to say to an _ animal. _

Vader stays silent for a moment, and at her continued efforts to ignore his provocations, he visibly grows angrier, his impossibly broad frame somehow becoming even larger. Even his Force-presence is poisoned by it, his already toxic aura becoming saturated by everything hateful and wrong, filling with his bloodlust. 

“Are you too tired to speak then? Should I give you a moment to recuperate?” He raises his blade. “If not, I might as well steal the tongue you seem so unwilling to use.”

He swings at her, his hand reaching for her face, and she uses the momentum to grab onto his arm and lift herself, using the Force the vault over his head. 

She lands at the edge of a high wall and turns to look down at him, her eyes blazing with the depth of her feeling, a mass of hatred swelling in her breast. She looks every inch the avenging angel she swore she wouldn’t be; and beneath it, the tortured woman she pretends she isn’t. 

He stares up at her for a long moment, and although she cannot see his eyes, she knows that they meet her own. “Are you going to strike me?” he asks. 

She tries to reach for that anger that she felt earlier—it would’ve made answering him so much easier— but it escapes her too quickly. Looking down at him, she feels hatred, yes, but mostly she feels hollow. A sense of _ so this is where this leads. _Padmé was never made to be a creature of darkness, and the impulse to murder him was only that. 

In the end, revenge was a road with no end, and she was tired of traveling that way. 

“I can’t,” she says, too softly, and turns and hops off the wall, sprinting away from him. 

She can practically hear him curse and move to run after her, can feel those mounting steps of his vibrate inside her chest, and that age-old panic bleeds itself into awareness once again. 

Padmé doesn’t want to be caught, but she’s tired of running. 

She’s turning a corner when she feels a hand wrap itself around her hair. Despite herself, she gives an undignified squeak as she’s yanked back into a solid mass. Another hand flies up and bands around her upper chest, locking her arms to her side. 

Desperately, she reaches to the Force to escape, but an opposing force meets her, strong and insurmountable. She grits her teeth, fighting against it regardless. The creature behind her growls, jostling her, but she ignores him. 

“Stop fighting!” She can practically feel his snarl. 

Padmé shakes against him, sweating profusely. _ “Never,” _she gasps. 

A weak point. A single shutter left unchecked. 

Padmé rushes towards it, forcing her way through, becoming enveloped in an inky, tar-like mass. Vader grits his teeth, and it invades her mind in turn, curling itself around the corners of her skull. 

The Force stills, and then sings. 

For a moment, Padmé is more than a Jedi, more than a girl. She is- 

She can’t describe it. She is _ more; _more than she’s ever been. There is not one heart but two. Not two lungs but four. 

_ More. _

Somehow she manages to snap out of it, and her presence recedes as quickly as it came. She’s left panting in the aftermath, her skin still electrified, but her heart thumping so wildly that it hurts. The world bleeds into awareness, and she hisses as the light of day meets her eyes, her head pounding obnoxiously. 

Behind her, she can vaguely hear Vader return to himself, his breathing just as labored. She tries to ignore it. 

She finds that she can’t.

Their heads whip around as the sound of Stormtrooper boots pounding against the dirt reach them. In response, Vader’s grip around her tightens, his arm an iron band across her chest; a more militaristic hold. 

The squadron meets them, their blasters at the ready. When they see their commander, they immediately halt, saluting him.

“You captured her, sir?” 

Against her back, she can feel him stiffen, his posture becoming straight and haughty. “It was my mission to do so,” he replies stiffly. It brokered no room for argument, for further questioning. Even Padmé felt the subtle command in it. 

The Trooper nods curtly, turning around and making a quick gesture. A man is brought forward, and when their eyes meet, Padmé gasps. 

It was the man she had run into earlier.

“I knew it,” he breathes, eyes roving over her. “I knew it was you.”

Her heart curdles at seeing his face again; she feels uncomfortable, despite herself. More than that though, is the sudden swell of anger that roars through her gut. 

She fights against Vader’s grip, wanting to lunge forward and kick the man’s smarmy teeth in. Unfortunately, his arm remains steady around her. 

“Do you know this Jedi?” Vader asks, and Padmé watches with some delight as the man’s face quickly sobers, paling under the stifling attentions of the Sith Lord.

“Y-Yes, Lord Vader. This is Jedi Knight Pad-“

Vader waves a hand dismissively, effectively shutting him up. “I did not ask for her backstory. I simply asked if you knew her.”

If possible, he pales further, his hands slightly trembling. At his side, the Stormtrooper nudges him, and, seeing this, Vader continues. 

“As a reward for your service to the Empire today, is there anything you would like to say to the traitor?” 

The man’s eyes find hers, as hungry and irreverent as they ever were. Still, she knows he finds no worth in what he sees. 

“This wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t act like some frigid bitch. You should’ve fucked me when you had the chance,” he says, his eyes lingering over her breasts. For a moment, that anger rears its ugly head again, but beneath it— perhaps even more shamefully— all she feels is a deep, gut-wrenching embarrassment. Her face burns with humiliation, and she ducks her eyes. 

A tense silence settles over the air, the moment still and horribly awkward. Suddenly though, she feels a whisper of an emotion, skimming lightning-quick through her body; an invasion. 

It was amusement. 

“If that is all,” Vader says before loosening his hold on her, but keeping his grip firm on her arm. “I believe we are done here.” 

The smuggler makes a strange noise, stealing Padmé’s attention, and she watches with mounting confusion as the man’s hands fly to his throat, his eyes bugging out. 

Realization dawns over her. She quickly turns to look up at Vader, his free hand curled in a slight pinching motion. 

“Thank you for your service to the Empire,” he says, and then makes a fist. The man’s neck makes a violent crunching sound and he crumples to the floor, body twitching. 

A horrified gasp sounds in the still air, and it takes her a few moments to realize that it came from her. She rushes forward, instinctively moved to help, but Vader’s tight grip keeps her anchored to him.

She spins around, staring up at the Sith with an appalled expression, revulsion twisting in her gut._ “Why!?” _she breathes. “Why!?” She can’t seem to say anything else. 

Padmé can’t see his face, but she knows instinctively that it’s passive, unaffected. “He had no further use for me.” He pauses, considering. “And he was a fool.”

She doesn’t know why she’s so horrified. This isn’t the first time she’s seen death; this isn’t even the worst thing she’s ever seen _ him _ do, but for some reason his callous violence disarms her, skins her raw. 

“I don’t see why you’re so offended,” he says after a moment. “Did you not hate him just moments ago?”

She did. So furiously that it burned. Padmé dislikes him still, but-

“He didn’t deserve to die,” she says with conviction, meeting his gaze squarely. She can’t see his eyes, but she knows with an unflinching certainty that they’re fixed upon her own.

“My lord,” a Stormtrooper breaks into their circle, stealing both their attentions. “A summons from the Emperor.”

Vader deftly grabs the datapad from the soldier’s hands and holds it to his hooded face. When he’s done reading whatever is on the screen, his hood swivels back in her direction. He stares at her for a long moment, but this time, instead of feeling a sort of bolstered confidence from her righteous anger, she simply looks away, uncomfortable. 

“Prepare the ship,” he commands, turning back to the Trooper. “We must return to the Imperial Center at once.” 

The Trooper directs a look at Padmé, his presence shining with confusion. She understands. She’s confused as well. 

“Sir, what of the-?“

Vader doesn’t flinch. “She’ll be coming with us.”

Padmé straightens up abruptly, too surprised to even realize that this means that she’s not going to be executed.

_ Yet. _

“Wait-!”

A large gloved-hand shifts into her peripheral, and she feels the Force-suggestion in the air already taking effect before he even speaks. _“Sleep,”_ he commands, before sweeping her up. 

By the time she collapses against him, she’s already in his arms. His hood is a dark blur staring down at her as she drifts off. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry if the fight scene wasn't super great. it's definitely not a strong point for me. i'm more of a flowery prose type of girl (if it weren't already obvious lmao)


	4. the master

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone! this chapter is a bit shorter because i didn’t want to do two action-filled chapters back to back so i’m sorry if it’s a little boring but pacing ya know. 
> 
> enjoy!

_ “He is always against something. Anger incites _

_ him. I am always for something. Anger  _

_ poisons me. I love, I love, I love.” _

_\- Anais Nin,  _ _ “Henry and June” _

* * *

Vader was furious.

He had been close, so, so close to getting the revenge he had finally desired, had yearned for, for _ years. _

But of course, his master had to interfere. 

In the beginning, Sidious had promised that Vader would get his pound of flesh, that he would be powerful enough to destroy the Jedi in their entirety. 

And he was! He exterminated them to near extinction years ago. He still relishes in it sometimes, the way it felt to storm through that Temple like a living nightmare, to tear their insignificant bodies apart with the flaming red of his lightsaber. The Dark Side had been strong that day, surrounding him like an inky shroud; it had been an intoxicating feeling. He had never felt such power in his life, pouring out through his fingertips, exuding from him until it was nearly tangible. 

And now? Now, Vader played insipid little games with politicians. He hid in shadows and stamped down rebellions all for the sake of his master, for _ politics. _

Even now, the thought makes him sick. The rebellion on Jedha had been too fledgling to be anything of a real challenge. He and his men had finished within the week, order and loyalty once again restored, and Vader just as agitated. 

But this mission— this mission was meant to be a relief. An outlet for all of his restlessness and frustration. Sidious _ knew _how long Vader had been waiting to exterminate this particular Jedi and had, on occasion, even fanned the flames of his vendetta against her. He certainly knew what he was doing when he had interrupted them. 

It must be one of his little tests then. Sidious was fond of those. 

Vader growls, his fists shaking with rage. The Jedi was back in her cell, still asleep, defenseless. Perhaps he could go back there and-

He looks up and Sidious’ grainy, blue face is there before him. Vader swallows his frustration and kneels down, submission surrounding him like a cloud.

“What is thy bidding, my master?”

“Lord Vader,” Sidious greets, his familiar slick voice cloying the air around him with the Dark Side. “I have heard of your success on Corellia.”

He successfully stamps down a sneer. There was nothing _ successful _about his mission. The Jedi was still alive. 

“Yes, Master,” he says. “Thank you.”

Sidious is silent for a moment, and Vader can feel his subtle curiosity, his slight amusement at what he considers a lapse of Vader’s understanding. 

“You are troubled, my apprentice.” Then, in a harsher tone, “Look at me.” 

He does. Even light years away with the stretch of multiple galaxies between them, Sidious’ gaze still burns. 

“You are angry. Why?” 

Now that he has been acknowledged outright, Vader is at liberty to stand. He faces his master and keeps his hands folded behind his back. 

“I do not understand why the Jedi has been spared. It was not outlined in the parameters of the mission-“ 

“Lord Vader.” Sidious’ tone is sharp, reprimanding. “Is that doubt I am sensing from you?”

Vader’s hands tighten behind him, leather cracking beneath his durasteel grip. “No, Master,” he says, appropriately deferential. “Never.”

Sidious stares at him for a long moment before he leans back, apparently satisfied with whatever he had been looking for. 

“I understand that you are eager to kill this Jedi,” he says— _ An understatement, _thinks Vader, wryly— “But we must think ahead.”

Beneath his hood, his brows furrow. “‘Think ahead?’ But, Master-“

Sidious’ mouth tightens, the fissures in his face deepening with his scowl. He holds up a hand, and Vader immediately stops speaking. 

“You are a foolish boy,” he snaps. “I do not find it pertinent to kill her yet.” 

Vader searches for words, but his rage and confusion steals them right from his tongue. A moment passes before he settles on: “What are we to do with her then?”

At this, Sidious smiles, a slimy, yellow grin between wormy lips. “You will take her to me. I was previously acquainted with her, after all.” 

He doesn’t dwell on this. “And after that?”

His master’s face goes dark again, and Vader feels a slight construction around his airways, the lightest of squeezes— a warning, a message of his disapproval. He shuts up and ducks his head once again. 

“You ask too many questions. I have foreseen her usefulness and that is all you need to know for now. Now go.” 

At the frank dismissal, and with his pride smarting, Vader bows once and watches the hologram flicker out. 

Anger churns like molten lava in his breast, made worse by the knowledge of the Jedi sleeping on the floor just below him. He hated feeling like this, this impotent helplessness; knowing that he couldn’t do anything but follow orders and wait like some mindless _ dog _ while his master bided his time doing _ whatever _it was he felt that he needed to do. 

Vader lets the frustration simmer, breathing it in, letting it swirl around him and heighten his presence, his connection to the Dark. If anything, it proved beneficial in this minor way. 

A hiss sounds at the door and he turns around, spotting a stiff-spined soldier before him. 

“Captain Piett, at ease,” he commands. He loops his fingers through his belt. 

The captain holds his salute for a moment longer before taking a step forward, the only sign of his anxiety being the slight twitch of his fingers. 

“My lord, the prisoner is-”

Vader is out of the room before he can even finish speaking. 

* * *

The world shifts back into focus with a painful burst of light. 

Padmé groans as she leans forward, her eyes blinking rapidly to adjust, her temples practically throbbing with a migraine. 

She reaches up to rub at the tender area, letting out a slow hiss between her teeth. It had been a while since she had felt such an annoying pain, she wonders how she could’ve gotten it in the relatively safe confines of her ship.

_ But wait. _

Padmé jerks up, heart pounding, as she takes in the interior of her room— her cell. She wasn’t on her ship. She wasn’t on Corellia. She was- 

_ “Vader,” _ she breathes, and the name falling from her lips sends a pang out into the Force, ringing with _ dread, _with truth. 

Her fingers bury themselves into her hair. Through her throbbing headache, she tries to remember how she got here. 

She was captured, of course, her current location made that obvious. She and Vader had fought and she ran away. He caught her and-

She remembers the slackening face of that smuggler, the one who sold her out, and the amusement that lingered beside her horror. After that it was blank. There was a fleeting recollection of Vader’s leather glove waving before her, but nothing else. 

Her body trembles with the onslaught of her memories, of her fear. She had known that she would get caught eventually; it was unavoidable. The galaxy may have been large, but Palpatine’s power seemed equally as vast. 

Just thinking his name sends a bolt of rage down to her gut, burning her from the inside out. If there is anyone she hates more than Vader, _ fears _more than Vader, it’s him. 

She pushes herself from the durasteel bench she was lying on, blinking rapidly to settle her migraine. She presses her temples once again and takes a second to look around.

The walls were grey and barren, the only other color being hints of a shiny chrome black, likely to instill further dread in an already intimidating room.

_ Black. _ Padmé huffs. _ At least he’s consistent. _

She stops. The universe pauses for a moment, stills, before resuming its natural order. Her skin prickles with goosebumps as a buzz settles over the air, inaudible, but a thick, tangible feeling. The Force is whispering, screaming, but it eludes her; the only thing she can hear is the instruction: _ Turn around! _

_ Turn around! _

She does. The durasteel doors hiss open as she falls back against her bench, and the tall, imposing form of Darth Vader fills the doorway. 

Even now, just seeing him sets her teeth on edge. 

He was still cloaked in black, still hooded, still black-gloved, a dark figure against the sterile grey background. Before, she didn’t really take the time to notice just how very large he was. He took up the spaces of the cell and made everything seem small in comparison, suffocating. 

Finally, he breaks the silence. “You are awake.”

“What am I doing here?” she blurts out. A flush immediately overtakes her face. She hadn’t intended on talking to him, on talking period, just to avoid giving him the satisfaction of hearing her fear, but, of course, her mouth had a mind of its own. 

“So she speaks,” he says, and the anger that flares inside her is unpreventable. “I didn’t think it possible.”

She sneers, fingers digging into the hard, cold durasteel at her hips. “I have nothing to say to _ you.” _

He takes a step closer, just an inch, but his proximity is enough to make her tense up, to bare her teeth at him and simultaneously duck her head like an injured animal. He notices, and she can’t mistake the emotion that radiates from him as anything other than smugness. 

“We will be arriving at the Imperial Center in 0200 hours. From then on, I will be taking you to the Emperor.”

Her head snaps up, her eyes narrowed into a vicious glare. A familiar desperation rises within her, curls around her heart and constricts. Somewhere inside, she shouts, _“No! No! No!” _

But when has she ever been afforded a choice? 

“No!” she hisses, even still. “I refuse!”

Vader tenses and crosses his arms, looming even larger, but even still, she is undeterred. 

“You are not in a position to make demands,” he says darkly, but Padmé doesn’t care. For whatever beast Vader might have been, he was still just that— an attack dog, a dark enforcer, a brute. He was nothing compared to his master. 

“I’d rather you kill me now,” she says tightly. “I’m not meeting with the Chancellor.”

“The _ Emperor,” _he snaps, and takes another step forward. His hand falls against her throat, fingers wrapping around her, but he doesn’t squeeze; a warning, then. 

“And you will.”

She glares up at him for a long moment, fists clenched at her sides. She wants to hit him, to rage against him and give him an excuse just to fight her, but she doesn’t. She can’t. 

Padmé still has to escape. 

She scoffs and looks pointedly away, ignoring the firm grip of his fingers around her neck. 

_ Metallic fingers, _ she thinks viciously. Because he’s a droid. Because he’s less than human. Because he’s not so much a _ he _ as he is an _ it. _ And the thought process loosens the vice around her heart some, because it was easier to hate Vader when she didn’t think of him as anything but a machine, and she _ hates _him. 

He steps away after a moment and returns back to the entryway. Only then does Padmé deign to look back at him. 

“After your meeting with the Emperor-“ He tilts his hood at a firm, strangely chastising angle- “We will decide what your fate is then.”

Padmé scoffs and crosses her arms. They both know damn well what her fate is.

“Until then, do not cause trouble.” And then he turns and leaves, the hard thumps of his boots vibrating against her own feet. 

It’s only when she lies back on the bench that she even realizes that her headache has faded. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i made playlists for the story!! if you guys pay attention, the songs will give you hints of where the story goes. 
> 
> [the sith](https://open.spotify.com/user/taygonza12/playlist/0GPMRxHQ21irYnIJlM46MQ?si=QxuDX1WWRl-dwZ6zGYWVRw)
> 
> [the jedi](https://open.spotify.com/user/taygonza12/playlist/01Mog8LPyequaFpLL9pAZA?si=oyRJKSwgSMyGatF_o8UKZg)
> 
> [haunt me then!](https://open.spotify.com/user/taygonza12/playlist/0hAhpRFhh04SFnkuemC9kd?si=wMnWCTlFSsusogRFiMWlcw)


	5. no room for pity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi guys!! sorry this update took a bit longer but the inspiration bug was a bitch. i hope you guys enjoy this one! 
> 
> also!! TW: Physical Violence. vader’s still a little bitch.

_”I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the _

_fallen angel...” _

_— Mary Shelley, Frankenstein _

* * *

“You are the prisoner, I take it?”

She turns towards the door, half expecting it to be Vader, before something within her decides, _ No. It couldn’t be. I would know if it was. _

It’s a soldier, young but hard-looking, his shoulders stiff and his face severe. Padmé knows immediately that this isn’t the type of man that she can sway with soft words or an iron front. He seems far too professional for it to be possible. And, by the look of his uniform, too high-ranking. 

She rises smoothly from her bench. “Am I already so popular?” 

To her dismay and to his credit, his face hardly budges. He simply straightens. “I was tasked by Lord Vader to escort you to the docking station.” 

Her fingers tighten around the cold durasteel. “To meet with the Emperor?” Her throat closes, her lungs twisting. She knows that she doesn’t have a place to demand things and that she cannot refuse to meet with Palpatine, but she can’t. She can’t. 

She changes the topic, unwilling to think of it. “Are you my handler now?” 

The soldier stiffens impossibly further, casting her a strange glance. “Hardly. This arrangement is only temporary until we land on the Imperial Center. From that point, Lord Vader will be escorting you.” 

Padmé doesn’t want to think of Vader either, and she looks around, taking in the blank walls of her cell. Aside from a few differences in color, they looked remarkably familiar.

She smiles. 

“Forgive me, I don’t think I ever got your name,” she says, turning back to the soldier. “My name is Padmé Naberrie, although I suppose you already knew that.”

For a moment, he looks a bit smug. “I did not actually. I only ever knew you as ‘prisoner.’ My name is Captain Firmus Piett.” 

“A pleasure, Captain.” She hopes her voice doesn’t sound as dry as she feels. 

As expected, he doesn’t respond, only stepping aside as a small group of Stormtroopers march into her cell. One of them steps forward, binders in hand, and she reluctantly offers up her wrists. She eyes the blasters subtly trained in her direction. It wouldn’t do to try anything now. 

Even still, as he cuffs her, she sighs loudly, glaring in the direction of the captain. He ignores her, and the Trooper at her side roughly grabs her arm and jerks her forward. She stumbles a bit and turns her glare to him, but, like the captain, the Trooper ignores her too. 

It’s a long walk down the sterile hallways, with many twists and turns that Padmé half-theorizes are done just for the sake of confusing her. Nevertheless, she takes in the blank interior, her eyes fluttering away every few seconds to scan something else that catches her attention. 

“This is an Imperial Class Star Destroyer, yes?” She directs the question towards the captain. 

He glances at her, his steps beside her as stiff and brisk as his posture. She doesn’t think that she imagines the annoyed twitch of his eyes. “Yes, the finest in the Empire.”

She hums, a slight, lilting sound. “Vader’s own?”

_ “Lord _ Vader,” he corrects, obviously irritated now. “And _ Lord _Vader is the Supreme Commander. Technically, he supervises every ship in the Imperial Navy.” He sighs. “But yes, this is the most frequently used.” The captain then directs a sharp look in her direction. “And with the best security. Don’t act as if I can’t see what you’re doing.”

Padmé flashes a smile at him in response. 

“The Republic used to have Star Destroyers too,” she says. “I don’t suppose the Imperial ones are much different.”

“Silence!” the captain snaps. “You speak far too freely for a prisoner!”

Padmé shuts her mouth, if only to keep him relaxed. She had to admit though that his anger was far less intimidating than Vader’s. 

From what she can see, the mechanics and designs of the ship stayed relatively the same, and although she knows that she was being escorted in a way designed to confuse her, she bets the docking bay was located in the same area: the front hull of the ship. And if that were true, then the escape pods also had to be located in the same area. It may have been two years, but she doubts that Imperial engineers would have found the need to do anything beyond upgrading the mechanics of the ship. 

Her lips twitch with the urge to smile, but she forces her face to remain lax. The docking bay wasn’t too far from the escape pods, that she knew with the utmost certainty, and if not, then she could improvise something else. Maybe steal a ship. She doubts that it would be _ too _difficult, as long as Vader wasn’t around. 

Now all she has to do is get her lightsaber back. 

She glances quickly at the men around her, spotting only blasters clipped to their belts. The captain had no weaponry on him, which either spoke very lowly of his intelligence or very highly of his self-confidence. The blasters could prove to be a problem without her saber, but Padmé was small and quick. She doesn’t doubt her ability to dodge them. 

_ “Do not cause trouble.” _ She can almost hear him say it now. Padmé stamps down the urge to sneer. _ As if I could. _

She was _ not _going to meet with Palpatine. She’d rather get shot down right now than ever have to face him again. 

For a moment, she can see him in her mind’s eye, imagine the soft, leathery touch of his aged hand above her head. He had been kind to her as a child, encouraging as an adult. He had been a mentor. He had been a manipulator. Aside from Obi-Wan, she’s not sure she can tell the difference between those two roles anymore.

“We are approaching the docking bay now.” The captain’s voice cuts into her reverie, and she glances at him for a moment, fingers flexing with anticipation. 

_ Now or never. _

She doesn’t even allow herself to think of it. She drops down to her knees and twists herself, kicking the feet of the soldiers around her out from under them. They fall with startled, modulated yelps, and Padmé pushes herself lighting quick to the captain’s side. He turns to fight her, clearly frazzled, but she ducks under his outstretched hand and jabs his side hard with her elbow. He bows over with a groan, and she grabs his collar, jerking him roughly over her knee. He falls to the ground with a sharp inhale, and Padmé starts towards the hall to the left, where the escape pods would be. 

She’s barely a foot forward when she’s snatched into the air. She grasps at her throat, where the collar of her robes bite into her neck, and turns hastily to look behind her, only for her heart to sink when she spots that dreadfully familiar black hood. 

Vader yanks her close, switching his hand from her clothes to her neck and squeezing. Padmé’s hands fly over his, but her strength and the size of her fingers are paltry compared to his. 

He brings her close, and she finds herself turning away from him, her heart skittering in her chest. She was an idiot. She didn’t anticipate Vader being so near while she attempted this. Why didn’t she think of it? 

A voice inside her whispers: _ Why didn’t I feel it? _

“What did I tell you about causing trouble?” he growls, the words reverberating against her cheek, inside her; he was that close. 

Padmé turns to glare into the shadows of his hood. Her fingers tighten around his hand. 

“I told you I wasn’t going to meet with the Emperor. You should’ve taken that seriously.” 

His palm flexes around her throat— a minor physical indication of the growing rage she can practically taste wafting off of him. 

“Oh, I don’t doubt your pluck, nor did I think that we’d end this trip without you doing something _ colossally _stupid. I just didn’t think you’d attempt it with me right behind you.” 

She doesn’t want to tell him that she didn’t notice him. And honestly, she severely doubts that he was behind her the entire time, but voicing any of this right now would only serve to prove his perceptions of her as true. 

And so, with little else to say, Padmé goes for what’s safest: “I hate you,” she hisses. 

Vader doesn’t flinch. He removes his hand from her neck and spins her around, locking his hand around her wrists and holding her against him. To keep her from doing anything else, she’s sure.

“I know,” he says, like she had just told him the state of the weather. For a moment, she’s almost annoyed at his lack of reaction, before she realizes that she’s not supposed to care either. 

During this time, the captain and the Troopers must’ve recovered, because she sees the fuming Imperial stomp towards them. She allows herself to feel the slightest bit of pity when she notices the flecks of blood and spittle around his mouth. Padmé didn’t think that she had hit him that hard. 

“I apologize for my incompetence, Lord Vader. There was no excuse to drop my guard around the prisoner,” he says, bowing deeply before him in shame. 

Vader’s fingers flex painfully around her wrists, and Padmé winces slightly. Her pain seems to placate the captain. 

“You are right, Captain. There was no excuse. You were foolish to go weaponless around someone who was trained as a Jedi Knight, regardless of the Stormtroopers around you.”

He looks down, wincing, his hands clenched at his sides. “I apologize,” he says. He turns to Padmé, his eyes sharp and accusatory. 

“You know the consequences of if this is to happen again.” 

The Imperial’s glare softens when his gaze switches from her back to Vader. He bows deeply once again and salutes him, just for good measure. By the tense line of his shoulders, Padmé thinks that he’s still expecting some form of punishment. 

“Of course, sir.”

“Now,” Vader starts, slipping into something effortlessly commanding. “Prepare our speeder for the prisoner and set us en route to the palace. Do _ not _fail me,” he growls, jerking a finger into the captain’s face. 

The other man audibly swallows and salutes sharply. “As you wish it, my lord!” he shouts and then walks stiffly ahead of them. 

After a moment, Vader shoves her forward, and for the second time today, Padmé finds herself nearly tripping over her own feet. 

He guides them ahead, his long strides making it practically impossible for her considerably shorter legs to match. She basically has to jog to meet him. 

“I expect you to be respectful, at the very least, when we meet with the Emperor.” 

She stiffens, hot anger licking at her belly.

“I have nothing _ respectful _to say to him,” she sneers. 

She’s caught off guard when she feels a slight rumbling vibration against her shoulder. _ He’s chuckling, _ she realizes with an almost eclipsing horror. The idea that Vader could feel anything other than hate, that he could _ laugh, _was terrifying. 

She almost doesn’t hear him when he says, “Then maybe you won’t speak at all,” and then she’s abruptly irritated again. 

When they approach the speeder, he practically shoves her inside, and Padmé falls hard into one of the seats. Vader follows her in immediately, and with a motion of one of his fingers, every single blaster is trained on her. She looks down, uncomfortable with seeing those blank Trooper helmets and the weapons in their hands. 

“Take us to the palace,” Vader commands, and her stomach sinks further. 

* * *

For the upteenth time today, Vader barely refrains from committing a decidedly deserved homicide. 

“Get out of the speeder,” he commands, once again. 

The Jedi stares at him from within the vehicle, brown eyes practically swallowing her face. He could sense the intensity of her fear, could practically taste it. It invigorated him as much as it enraged him. 

_ “Get. Out.” _

Her face shutters, and she takes a shaky, hesitant step forward. Vader, at the end of his patience, reaches towards her and jerks her out. She slams into him, and they both grunt, her in surprise, him in disgust. 

Without giving her a moment to adjust, he pulls her forward, keeping his hand tight around her wrists. They were so slight. He could break them if he wanted to. 

The thought soothes his anger, just a bit. 

He leads her down the opulent halls of the palace, eyeing the decor with a small measure of disgust. Technically, as Sith, grandeur was forbidden to them. Anything expensive and indulgent was, really, but Sidious was fond of extravagances, and Vader never really cared enough to argue with him on it. 

Apparently, the Jedi had been looking at it too, because she softens slightly, her eye drawn to one of the detailed paintings. 

“That’s Naboo,” she whispers, voice tight, and he glances at her a moment, watching her watch the artwork, before he shakes himself of it. He pushes her forward and she goes without complaint. 

Eventually they reach the tall, grand doors to the throne room. The Jedi visibly stiffens before him, and her fear rushes at him with a renewed vigor. It’s so large, so potent, that for a moment he can almost feel it himself. 

He’s nudging her forward, nodding at the red-robed guards to open the door, when she abruptly turns to him, her eyes wide and beseeching, as if she were pleading. 

The look catches him off-guard, and he stares at her for too long a moment, trying to digest her expression, the imploring slant to her eyes; her lips were parted, as if to entreat to him. 

Just as suddenly, he’s disgusted with himself, with her for her obvious vulnerability to an enemy. He doesn’t know what she expected. For him to help her? 

_ For him to feel bad? _

He roughly pushes her forward and she stumbles. He takes delight in the show of weakness, in what he perceives to be the natural order between them. She is his prisoner and he is her captor, her eventual executioner; the only room for emotion to exist between them is hatred, not pity. 

By the time she rights herself, they’re marching forward again. His hand finds its way back over her wrists, and a different brand of tension stiffens them, stiffens her shoulders. He can feel it practically cloaking her signature, the depth of her rage. 

_ Not very characteristic of a Jedi, isn’t it? _he thinks dryly, and amused, despite himself. 

They reach the Emperor within moments, and Vader immediately sinks into a bow. When he notices that the Jedi continues to stand straight, he reaches for her neck and forces her head down. She fights his grip stubbornly as he does so.

“Lord Vader,” Sidious greets. “I see you’ve brought your run-away Jedi. I trust she hasn’t posed too much of a problem?”

The question only serves to set his nerves on edge, and he fights the urge not to squeeze her wrists again. Without fail, she’s been relentlessly irritating, and he truly cannot wait for his master to give the order for her execution. 

“No more troublesome than any other prisoner,” he answers instead. The Jedi beside him growls audibly, and he resists the urge to smirk. 

“Really?” Sidious asks, humming. “How… disappointing.”

The Jedi snarls, her teeth bared and eyes tight. The Emperor, in response to her impotent rage, simply smiles, his cracked lips proudly showcasing yellow teeth. 

“It’s been too long, my dear. How have you been these last two years?”

She jerks forward as if to attack him, and Vader pulls her back into his chest, wrapping an arm across her neck. 

_ “Traitor!” _ she spits, squirming and scratching like some rabid feline in his grasp. _ “Kriffing traitor!” _

“Oh dear,” the Emperor says mildly. “It seems as if I have touched a sore spot.” 

“Should I escort her out?” he asks, planting a hand across her opposite hip to still her jerking movements. 

“No, no. I don’t believe I’ve said quite what I’ve needed to yet.”

At his words, she relaxes just a bit, evidently curious. And then, as if overcome with something, the Jedi softens against him, ceasing her violent movements to adopt something decidedly more regal. Her chin tilts upwards, and she slowly attempts to remove herself from him, sniffing delicately. 

“Are you with us now?” the Emperor asks. When she doesn’t respond, he continues. “You’re probably very curious about your current circumstances.”

“Why haven’t I been executed yet?” 

Sidious hums. “Well that is the question isn’t it?”

“I know you have no regard for me. I know that you have no stipulations with murdering Jedi. Why didn’t you order Vader to kill me yet?”

_ “Lord _Vader,” Sidious corrects. “And what would be the purpose in that?”

For a moment, she’s silent, and even Vader is attempting to understand what he means. _ The purpose? The purpose in killing her? _He can think of many. 

The Jedi is probably on the same train of thought, because she asks, “The purpose of executing me?”

“No, my dear. The purpose in telling you. Why would I let you know?” 

Her fear drifts up again. It flutters uncertainly around his chest. He almost rubs at it, bemused at the sensation. 

“I-“ she starts, sounding unsure and vulnerable, but he’s not finished speaking. 

“Until I decide otherwise, my dear girl, you will be our prisoner. I still have need of you, and you’ll know when that need expires the second you wake up on the executioner’s block. And if you’re very good, you may be living a few months more, but that all depends on you. Now, is that all the questions you have?”

She shakes in front of him, her eyes wide and her cheeks ruddy. She opens her mouth to speak, to regain some of her earlier composure, but he can see it physically withdraw in her. 

After a moment, the Emperor waves his hand in dismissal and then turns to look at Vader. “You will be holding her within your base. If she is to reach her demise before I instruct it, whether by your hand or one of your officers, understand that the consequences will be severe.”

As if to punctuate his statement, there’s a slight, short construction around his airway. Yes, Vader was very aware of the punishments in store. 

“It will be as you wish, my master.” 

After a moment, Vader bows deeply before grabbing the Jedi’s arm and pushing her around. She follows him with minimal complaint, which he suspects has more to do with her lingering fear than it does with any compliance she has with him. 

As he walks down the hall towards his speeder, he realizes that he’s angry. He’s not sure what he anticipated, but he didn’t think that he’d be given the responsibility of watching over the Jedi. Logically, it makes the most sense given that the Emperor would be too busy politicking to pay her any attention, and Vader _ was _ the one who captured her. 

Even still, the idea of spending any further time around her beacon of a Force-presence was repulsive. Chances are, he’ll probably pass off the brunt of her care to an officer under him. Piett, perhaps. He doubts that he’d be very lax around her now after the stunt she pulled today. 

Eventually, they reach the speeder, and the Jedi steps inside without complaint. Vader sends her a hard look as she sinks down into a seat, but she ignores him, staring silently out the transparisteel window. 

He looks away from her, annoyed at her obvious turmoil, and gestures at the pilot. 

“Take us to the base, and inform the captain to have a cell prepared when we arrive.” He turns his hooded face to the captive, watching her. 

“Tell him we have a guest.”   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! so just in case you missed it, i linked the spotify playlists for this fic. there’s one for padme, one for anivader, and one for them both.


	6. old friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone! i’m sorry for the late update but this quarantine has been a bitch, along with school. but! here i am! i hope you guys enjoy this one!

_“I am not an angel,' I asserted; 'and I will not _

_be one till I die: I will be myself.”_

_— Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë_

* * *

_ She had met him when she was a Padawan, newly chosen and bright-eyed, and hopelessly, recklessly naive. _

_ “Ah!” The chancellor smiles at them from behind his desk, standing once they walk in. “Jedi Kenobi, it is a pleasure to see you again.” _

_ “And you as well,” her new master says, all politeness. “The Council said you had requested me?” _

_ The chancellor laughs and walks out from behind his desk, his hands tucked into his impressive sleeves. Padmé eyes them almost covetously, slightly jealous that he had the freedom to own such opulent clothing. _

_ “So quick you are to move to business, Kenobi,” he says. He turns and gestures at the plush chairs. “Sit! Sit! I’m sure we have much to talk about!” _

_ Her master’s smile turns a bit wan. “I feel quite comfortable standing, but I thank you for your hospitality, Chancellor. Was there something you needed?” _

_ It happens for a moment, almost too quickly, but Padmé notices the slight tightening of his eyes, the rustle of his hands moving within his sleeves, but before she can even register it as significant, his amiable grin is back and targeted now at her. _

_ “Yes, I heard you have chosen a Padawan. I wanted to see so for myself.” _

_ Obi-Wan directs a fond look at her now too, and Padmé blushes slightly beneath their attention, flattered. _

_ “Yes, I have.” He motions for her to step forward. “This is Padmé Naberrie, my new Padawan. And my first.”_

_ The chancellor bows his head at her, and she quickly bows at the waist in return, attempting to look as effortlessly regal as he did. _

_ “It’s nice to meet you, Chancellor,” she says, raising herself to look him in the eyes. “I’m honored that you wanted to see me.” _

_ “Such a well-mannered girl!” he exclaims, clapping his hands. “Truly, Kenobi, you’ve outdone yourself by choosing her!” _

_ A bit embarrassed, and slightly miffed to be talked about as if she weren’t right in front of them, Padmé smiles, rolling back her shoulders and standing a bit taller. _

_ “Thank you, sir. I try hard to respect those around me and address them accordingly.” _

_ There’s a subtle nudge at her mind— a slight chastising from her master for her sarcasm, probably— but it’s interrupted by the sudden delighted laugh that echoes throughout the room. _

_ Both Padmé and Obi-Wan direct their attention back to the Chancellor to see him grinning from ear to ear, dabbing at his eye with his sleeve. _

_ “Well,” he says, once he’s righted himself. “I suspect you and I are going to be _ very _ close friends, my dear girl.” _

* * *

Padmé was ashamed of herself. 

She hadn’t intended to fall apart the way that she did. She had wanted to look strong, to look angry, to look _ proud, _even, in spite of everything that the Emperor had done to her. But she couldn’t hold herself together. 

It was like she had been scraped raw, hollowed out, with only rage to fill in the empty spaces. When he spoke, it was like all that rage had crested and spilled over, leaving her seeing red and seething even before she had realized what she said. Vader had to hold her back. It was embarrassing. She felt _ humiliated. _

Padmé rarely ever did that. She used to pride herself on her quick wit and her unflappable self-control. Once again, she finds herself wondering if that part of her had also been stolen the day that Order 66 came into being. 

“Get up.”

She looks up to find Vader staring down at her, his hands outstretched. Outside the transparisteel window, she can see the chrome silver and black interior of a docking bay. This must be the entrance to his base. 

She wants to curse herself. She had been so distracted that she completely missed the ride here, and with it, any possible chances to learn an escape route. 

With how often she had been trying his patience today, Padmé didn’t think it wise to offer up any more unnecessary resistance. She lifts her bound wrists, and with a harsh tug, he has her on her feet and stumbling out the ship.

Within moments, he’s back behind her, his grip tight and familiar on her arm; she finds it only moderately concerning that she’s becoming accustomed to something like his touch so quickly. 

The captain from earlier greets Vader as he leads her forward, his mouth tightening at the sight of her. 

“My lord.”

“I trust you were able to follow my orders.” There’s that commanding presence again, that underlying threat of lethal brutality were Vader to find himself displeased. Hateful of him as she was, even Padmé couldn't help but shiver at it slightly. 

She doesn’t allow herself to dwell on it, however. Vader nudges her forward, and she begins to walk. 

“Of course, my lord,” the captain says, moving quickly to match Vader’s rapid pace. 

“In the appropriate cell?”

“Yes, my lord.” The captain directs another look at her, which she ignores. “As you’ve said, I’ve taken the time to be extra cautious.”

Vader gives a short grunt, and Padmé has the distinct feeling that he may have been… amused, somehow. 

“After your performance today, you’d be a fool if you didn’t.”

In that, she had to agree. 

Vader marches them into an elevator, turning her around so that the captain could punch in the correct floor button. She huffs at him, and his fingers tighten around her wrist in warning. 

Padmé takes advantage of the silence to allow herself to think. What the Emperor had said, while not wholly unexpected, still disturbed her greatly. What was she supposed to help them with? She had been isolated in space for the better part of two years with only scant moments of human interaction, what did she know? 

She supposes it’s because of the fact that she was a Jedi; so perhaps something to do with the Clone Wars? But no. 

The Clone Wars had been over for years, the Clone Troopers now either retired or working for the Empire, there was no intelligence to gain there. 

She furrows her brows, her fingers twitching with the urge to rub at her temples. 

The elevator door eventually hisses open, and Vader grabs her shoulder and turns her around. He takes ahold of her wrist once again, and she winces under the pressure of his fingers.

His touches were often rough, violent— not that she had expected any differently— but they were quickly becoming an annoyance; she anticipated waking up to bruises tomorrow.

The captain leads them down a long and narrow hall before he stops at a cell. He enters some sort of code into the padlock and the door slides open, an ominous hiss accompanying it. 

Vader shoves her inside, stepping in as well, while the captain stays back, watching them warily.

Padmé holds her wrists up expectantly as she takes a look around, the interior the same chrome silver and black as the rest of the compound. “This is nice,” she mutters dryly. 

“Yes, I dare say it suits you.” Vader quickly unlatches her cuffs, clipping them to his belt. A few seconds of silence pass before he turns back to her, his arms crossed. 

“I expect for you to behave. You have had a deplorable record thus far of behaving intelligently, but I expect your will to live exceeds your more… impulsive habits. From this point on, the captain will observe the majority of your care.”

“Wait!” Padmé takes a step forward, a hand outstretched. 

Vader turns back to her, his hood tilted in a strangely expectant manner. 

“Um.” Her hand found its way to her neck, her fingers toying nervously with a lone curl. “What did Palpatine mean when he said that you would have “use” for me? Did he mean information?”

He stares at her for a long moment— almost uncomfortably so— as the air shifts between them. The hair at the nape of her neck stands on end, her stomach twisting at the sensation of the Dark Side radiating from the man before her. His moods were so volatile, so violent; the slightest suggestion from her could set him off. 

“We’ll save that for the interrogation,” he says, before turning away from her, the door hissing shut behind him. 

Padmé exhales a shuddering breath and falls back onto the hard, thin mattress behind her. She lies down and stares up into the camera located at the corner of her room, wondering if Vader could have been watching her. 

She turns away.

* * *

“Wait! Wait, wait. Rewind that.”

The man at her side listens to her, pressing on the button to rewind the footage, and they both lean in, eyes trained on the grainy hologram. 

Within the footage lied a girl, small and slight, but even with the low resolution, obviously beautiful. She was collapsed against a veritable nightmare of a man— their biggest nightmare, surely— her body held reluctantly in his arms. He signaled at the soldiers behind him and they marched off, the girl’s hand dangling lifelessly. 

The realization hits her slowly, a rising tide becoming a towering wave, until the sudden knowledge of the fact slams into her, drowning her in a heady and exhilarating mix of hope and horror.

Ahsoka Tano leaps out of her seat, her entire body trembling, but the Force singing around her. 

_ She was alive! She was alive! Padmé was alive! _

“I have to let them know,” she whispers, before rushing forward and plucking the device from the man’s hands. She ignores his disgruntled, _ “Hey!” _and moves towards the door, sending him a shaky, but apologetic smile. 

“I’m sorry!” she calls out, her rapid pace picking up into a run. “I’ll give this back later. I need it right now!”

She turns back from him, running through the small and narrow hallways of their current hideout. 

“Master Kenobi is gonna _ freak!” _she whispers to herself, a smile spreading across her face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the short chapter, but at least now we know we’re starting to get into the more interesting bits😳 i hope you all are doing alright and staying safe!💖


	7. connections

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i updated this pretty quick i’m feeling proud of myself😌✨
> 
> also! warning for vader’s internal thoughts. he’s still an asshole. do i still need to keep adding this as a warning? it’s just character at this point.

_“All that we see or seem is but a dream within _

_a dream.”_

_—Edgar Allen Poe, “A Dream Within a Dream”_

* * *

Obi-Wan’s world changes when the little Togrutan bursts through the door, her blue eyes wild, and a device held in her hands. 

“You’re not going to believe this.”

“Ahsoka,” he greets dryly. “Welcome. Please do make yourself at home.”

She rolls her eyes, but bows her head in a customary fashion. When she rises back up, she rushes back over to them and sets the device on the table. 

“Something to show us, do you have?” Yoda asks. The old master sits beside him, his hands folded together. They had been meditating before she stormed in. 

“Masters, please!” She turns on the hologram and an image materializes. “Please watch this. It’s important.”

Obi-Wan spares her a slightly reproachful look, but turns to the recording, Yoda shifting beside him to do the same. Ahsoka presses on the button, and the hologram plays. 

At first, he can not discern it from anything else; it is simply a girl struggling against a figure in black. Then, as the hologram plays again, the details start to fill in: the color of the girl’s skin, her height, the brown of her hair— all muddled from the low-quality security footage, but unmistakable once realized. On this third viewing, the figure in black behind her, grabbing her, carrying her, revealed itself to be the very thing they were fighting against: Darth Vader. 

Obi-Wan pushes himself away from the table, his mind reeling. She was dead. She had died. There was no way she could’ve survived, she had been at the Temple during the Purge. How? How? 

“Master Kenobi? Are you alright?”

“Is this a joke, Ahsoka?” he asks, trying in vain to find some of his characteristic composure. 

The anticipatory grin on her face melts away into a concerned frown and she shakes her head. 

“No, Master. It’s recorded security footage from the arrest on Corellia, that’s been very—“ She crooks her fingers sarcastically— “classified. There’s no way this is fake.”

“Then how do you know this is Padmé?” He can’t keep the dread from his voice, the beginnings of fear that he can feel churning in his chest. 

“You don’t forget a face like Padmé’s,” she remarks dryly, before sobering again. “This should be a happy moment, Master Kenobi. She’s alive.”

“She’s with _Vader.”_ The admission seems to solidify the truth of the reality to him, and he feels his mosaic heart crack, just a little bit more. “She’s anything but safe.”

“So we rescue her,” Ahsoka states easily. “We have options.”

“The council would have to approve.”

She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. “Ah, yes, the council. Why wouldn’t they.”

“You should speak of them respectfully, Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan reproaches, latching onto this one familiar thing, trying to ground himself back to reality as his mind kept whispering, _Padmé, __Padmé, __Padmé-_

“Why should I?” She says, frustrated. “All they do is hold us back-“

“Quiet.” 

Ahsoka and Obi-Wan both immediately stop speaking, turning their attention to the most senior Jedi before them. 

“Plan this carefully, we must,” he says, folding his hands. “Rushing into this, we cannot. Very dangerous, Vader is.”

Obi-Wan closes his eyes, the image of Padme in Vader's arms still seared into his mind. He barely refrains from wincing. 

“How do we even know if she’s still alive?”

“Can’t you find that out?” Ahsoka turns to him. “You two have a bond right?”

Obi-Wan shakes his head. “It’d be too dangerous. Not only would Padmé sense me, but Vader as well, given their proximity.” His lips thin. “This being, of course, that she’s still alive.” 

“Alive, she is,” Yoda interjects. “Killed her, he would have, but didn’t.” 

Silence reigns over the trio for a long moment, each seemingly lost in their own thoughts, the severity of their reality still sinking in. 

One of their own was still alive, in danger, what could they do but try to rescue her? 

“Tell the council, we must,” Yoda says, shifting to face them both. “Go into this alone, we cannot.”

Ahsoka’s eyes narrow, but she concedes, her shoulders dropping. “You’re right, Master.” She glances at Obi-Wan. “Padmé is too important to go into this recklessly.” 

He ignores her look, but nods at Yoda, drawing himself up high, despite every instinct in his body calling for him to sink into the chair beneath him. He was scared, there was no doubt about that; terrified and confused and angry, even, but there was something that tickled at his chest. A certain warmth that he had not felt in over two years. 

_Hope. _

* * *

Vader stalks down the long halls of the Imperial Palace, a contingent of Stormtroopers surrounding him.

The last few days had been busy for him, and not in the way in which he’d find productive or satisfying. There were no orders to go off-world and stamp down some rebellion or other, or capture some foolish spies trying in vain to work against the Empire. 

No, instead he’d been preoccupying his time with tedious meetings about some battleship that Sidious and his gaggle of sycophants had been debating over. Vader hardly paid it any mind— with one glance at the blueprints, he’d been able to understand how much of a disaster it was, mechanically speaking. It was of no consequence, really; this battle station was nothing compared to the might and power of the Force. 

Vader much prefers being out in space, anyway. Being surrounded by an endless stretch of stars and galaxies, unencumbered on all sides. 

_Free. _

One of the stormtroopers makes a hand signal, and a red-robed guard stands aside, pushing open the door as Vader marches inside. The stormtroopers wait out behind him, knowing at this point not to follow him in. 

He reaches the middle of the throne room, kneeling down before his master. He feels Sidious’ appraisal rove over him like a hot brand, his stare a physical weight. 

“You have summoned me, Master?”

Sidious hums. “Yes, yes! Stand, Lord Vader. I wish to be informed of any developments.”

Vader’s brows furrow beneath his hood. “Any developments?”

The Emperor rolls his eyes, irritated. “Yes, with your Jedi.”

And on to the second— and arguably biggest— cause for his present anger and unrest. 

In truth, Vader had taken care not to see much of her, and to think of her even less. He’d left the brunt of her care to Captain Piett, trusting him to oversee her general health and well-being, and, if in the case of the good captain roughing her up a bit, well, there wasn’t much Vader could do about that if he wasn’t there right? 

Besides, the mental image he’d had of the Jedi, kneeling before him, her hair eschew and her eyes heavy with tears, was exhilarating. 

“Well?”

“No,” Vader replies, then quickly amends. “No, Master.”

“‘No?’” The Emperor echoes, tilting his head mockingly. “She has been under your care for nearly a week now, and you bring me nothing?” Sidious scoffs, his hand crooking slightly, and Vader nearly feels his knees buckle with the sudden intense pressure around his throat. He forces himself to stand upright, to refrain from grabbing at the invisible hands around his neck.

After a few moments, the pressure recedes, and Vader greedily draws in lungfuls of air, his whole body trembling.

“I suppose this _is_ my fault,” Sidious says finally, holding a hand out. “I never did give you her basic information.”

Heat drives through him, lightning quick; a flash of something bigger. 

A Praetorian Guard approaches him, offering up a datapad. Vader swipes it from him and immediately starts looking through it. 

It was an outline of the Jedi’s life, from when she was born to just before the commencement of Order 66, when she had been knighted. 

“Her name is Padmé Naberrie,” Sidious says. “She’s young, one of the youngest Jedi to have ever been knighted, and she apprenticed under the _legendary_ Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi.” He smiles, a slow, simpering thing. “I’ve known her quite a long time.”

_Padmé __Naberrie_. Vader mouths the name from beneath his hood. He’s never heard a name quite like it before. 

“You knew her?”

“Yes, from when I was Chancellor. Quite a sweet thing, really. Far too mature for her age, but gentle.” He sneers then, like he’s sickened. _“Compassion._ Oh the Jedi used to go on and on about compassion.” He looks at Vader, smiling when he notices his fingers tightening around the datapad. “And look at how good it did them.”

_“Yes,”_ Vader hisses from between gritted teeth.

“In any case.” Sidious waves his hands about dismissively, effectively shutting down the topic. “I will be calling upon you again soon. I expect for there to be some improvements on your side. I didn’t ask you to keep her alive just to look at, no matter how pretty the girl may be.”

_Pretty?_ Vader hasn’t thought of anyone being something as menial as pretty in years. It was a strange thing for Sidious to say. 

Nevertheless, he bows again, muttering a quick, “As you wish, Master,” before turning around and sweeping out of the throne room, the stormtroopers bustling to join him. 

Walking to his speeder, Vader glances at the datapad again, idly wondering what other information he could glean about the Jedi from it. 

_Padmé Naberrie,_ he thinks again. He smirks.

He much preferred calling her “Jedi.”

* * *

There was a Stormtrooper who came into her cell everyday, twice a day to bring her food. Padmé knew that it was the same Trooper because of the quick way he’d walk in, drop the tray in front of her, and then rush out, as if he couldn’t stand to be in her presence for too long. 

_Well,_ she thinks. _That and his Force signature. _

She pulls herself up lazily from her prone position, watching idly as the Trooper walks in to begin his daily song and dance. Today though, something compels her to break this little routine. 

“What’s your name?”

He pauses, his hands hesitating around the tray. His helmet swivels toward her, and for a breathless moment, Padmé really thinks he might answer.

He seems to overcome it, however, unceremoniously dropping the tray in front of her and turning to leave. The door hisses shut behind him as a final dismissal. 

Padmé sighs in defeat and lays back down, wondering if her isolation was enough to drive her into trying to befriend Imperials of all people. 

_But they’re not just Imperials. They’re Troopers._

She swallows down the sudden lump in her throat, turning over to face the wall.

* * *

The sky was dark, black with plumes of smoke rising into the air. 

Padmé lies on the ground, surrounded by debris, blood, and dismembered body parts, all outfitted in Clone Trooper armor, Jedi robes. 

For a moment, she thinks she’s back in the war, lightsaber blazing, preparing to fight Separatists, an old enemy, but a familiar one; she expects to stand back-to-back with Obi-Wan. 

But when she reaches out to the Force, she feels nothing of his familiar steadiness, his serenity in nearly all things that would’ve paralyzed any lesser Jedi in fear. Instead she senses that darkness, that inky presence that once sunk into her bones and thrummed beneath her skin like a poison. 

Padmé scrambles to her feet, her hand reaching for her saber. Her heart pounds relentlessly against the wall of her chest; a physical pain. 

She comes up empty handed, her searching fingers finding nothing. Panic swells in her chest, but she clamps it down, shutting her eyes tightly and reaching for that Light, that inner peace that she so loved. 

She feels it’s tendrils reaching back, caressing her skin, her hair, the surface of her soul, wrapping her in a lover’s embrace.

_Open your eyes,_ it whispers. _Open your eyes._

A vision of ruby red greets her, as vast and as intense as a sea of lava.

* * *

Vader shoots up from his desk, his head spinning. A mess of datapads and blueprints lie around him, ignored, as he cards a hand through his sweaty hair. 

He had seen her. 

It shouldn’t have been too concerning. It was common enough for him to have dreams, and it was a known fact that people dreamed of those who they had recent and prolonged contact with. For all that the Jedi and him were enemies, they had been together often enough. Too much, in his opinion. 

But still. _Still._

It was her eyes. She had stared at him, into him, as if she could see within the very depth of his soul. As if she could see him, as if she were sentient, and not some figment of his sadistic subconscious. 

Vader groans, running a gloved hand down his face. 

He was being imaginative; Sidious accused him of it often enough as a child, and he supposes that there might have been some truth to it if his current train of thought was any indication. 

He can’t forget though, her eyes, they had been so alive, so knowing. So brown. 

Vader shakes his head, grabbing a blueprint and deciding to distract himself with something productive. 

The Jedi was an unfortunate pain, and soon enough he would be free of her. Vader would make sure of it. 

_Yes,_ he thinks, smirking a bit. 

It wouldn’t be too long now. 

* * *

In his own chambers, surrounded by darkness, a cloaked figure sits up, aged fingers steepling together.

It was minute, a barely detectable disturbance, but one nonetheless. 

Beneath the shadow of his hood, Sidious frowns. 


	8. who are you, really?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> vader decides to take action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone! it’s been a while😳
> 
> first of all, i’m so sorry for the long wait. i wasn’t feeling motivation for this story for a while, and then i proceeded to get side-tracked by another project, but now that i finished it, i was thinking of this one again. i just wanna let you guys know that no matter what, no matter if i don’t update for months, or years (god forbid), i won’t abandon this fic. it’s a concept i’m deeply in love with, and i’m really excited to see it through with you guys. thank you for being so patient with me <3
> 
> chapter title taken from “who are you, really?” by mikky ekko

_“‘Sing, little bird. Sing for your little life.’”_

_\- George R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings_

* * *

“The Rebel Alliance?”

“Yes, sir. There have been whispers of them hiding on their base on Dantooine.”

“We eradicated them on that base already. What’s the point of going back?” Vader leans back on his chair, crossing his arms.

“Hiding in plain sight? I’m not quite sure, my lord.”

Beneath his hood, Vader purses his lips, thinking it over. It would be quite stupid to hide back on an old base, and he’d bet this was more of a dead-end than anything, but he also never put foolish decisions past the Rebellion. 

He stands up, looping his fingers into his belt loops. Rolling his shoulder back, he moves to stand taller, fighting a wince at the pull of his tight muscles. 

“Take a squad out and observe the area. I don’t want you to leave any corner of the planet unchecked, regardless of how improbable the information might be.”

The captain salutes him sharply. 

“Yes, sir! Although…” 

Vader tilts his head curiously, gesturing for him to continue. 

“I would not be able to watch the Jedi.”

His lips thin. It had been a few days since his last meeting with the Emperor— and his subsequent dream— since he had last thought of her. He had done everything in his power to avoid it, busying himself with various military affairs and personal mechanical projects to bide his time. It was shameful, but he supposes that he had been… avoiding her, as embarrassing as that was to admit.

It was ridiculous! She was nearly half his size and as intimidating and foolish as a newborn porg. Vader had nothing to fear from her aside from the sheer revulsion she instilled in him just from her presence alone. He was a grown man and a Sith Lord besides, and the most powerful Force-wielder in the entire universe. He could handle _ babysitting _a nuisance. 

He clenches his fist, whipping his hood towards the captain, barely noticing his instinctive flinch. 

“Don’t worry about that. I will watch her myself.”

Captain Piett blinks rapidly in response, his stoic composure slipping for a moment. “Are you certain, my lord? I know that you don’t-“

“Quite,” he snaps, feeling his irritation swell at the reminder of his earlier weakness. He turns sharply towards the captain, striding forward until he towered over the other man. 

“Take me to her.”

* * *

Padmé stares up at the ceiling, eyeing the camera trained on her from the corner of her cell, feeling dreadfully unsettled.

It was normal for her to have dreams of the Clone Wars. Nightmares, even more so. It was an event that swallowed several years of her life, that shifted the way she fought and trusted and interacted with other people. At times, she even had a masochistic nostalgia for it, but the images in her dream last night, while familiar, were also perturbing. 

_ Those red eyes, _she thinks, clutching at her arms. For some reason, they itched at her nerves more than anything. 

She knows that part of it just has to do with the stress of her situation. As traumatic as the past several years had been, Padmé was always on the run. She never had the time to sit down and mourn her circumstances beyond the rare few minutes where her grief would catch her off-guard and force her to. Now, she has nothing but time, but herself to contend with. 

Padmé exhales a bitter laugh. And to think that just a few days ago, she cursed constantly being on the run, too frantic and too paranoid to even have a moment of peace to herself. Now, she would give anything to have that back. 

_ Well, at least you have people to speak to now. _

And what a group of people they were. Captain Firmus Piett was dreadful. He was stiff, professional, and perpetually stoic, and while once, Padmé might’ve commended his dedication to his job, she felt considerably less complimentary because of how _ rude _it made him behave towards her. He’s an Imperial, she knows that, but did it mean he had to be so awful! Everytime he was near her, he had his nose turned up so high, she could hardly make eye-contact with him.

The Stormtrooper was similarly unbearable, but in a different way. Instead of instilling dread in Padmé, looking at him saddened her. She kept wanting to talk to him, to get him to talk to her, to hear his voice. She kept wanting to tell him that she liked Troopers, and that Troopers liked her too, once upon a time. But he was hasty. Somehow, he seemed to understand her strange desperation in speaking to him, and took to avoiding her company whenever possible, dropping her food off in seconds. The door would hiss open, he would set the meager, and oftentimes disgusting, meal in front of her, and be out before she could even say thank you. Padmé, still new to being rejected, couldn’t help but take it to heart. 

She doesn’t even know why she tries; he’s an _ Imperial. _He probably thought she was some sentimental fool.

_ But he’s also a Trooper, _she thinks, and it seems to make all the difference.

Padmé sighs and turns over to lay on her stomach. She was becoming too idle, too lonely. All she did was sit around, curse her circumstances, fantasize about escaping, and avoid thinking about-

_ Kriff! _She flicks arm in punishment, abruptly annoyed at herself. She did it again. 

Over the past… however long her imprisonment was now, she made it a point to avoid thinking of him whenever possible. It did _ wonders _for her blood-pressure, but she found that Vader, much like a parasite, often tended to sneak up on her anyway. He was perpetually rooted beneath her skin, threatening to disarm her. She half-theorizes that the red eyes that so frightened her in her dream belonged to him. Flashing at her like some malicious demon, just waiting for her to drop her guard in order to strike. 

She shivers, shaking her head to dispel the notion. 

Still, it was fortunate then that most of his appearances were limited to her mind only. Vader seemed just as keen to ignore her. 

Padmé’s musings are interrupted when she hears a familiar beep, and she sits up just as the door hisses open. Her heart sinks when she spots a hooded figure standing in the entrance, his arms crossed. The captain and three other Stormtroopers are positioned behind him; afterthoughts.

_ Speak of the devil. _And to think that he had forgotten about her.

“Vader,” she greets, once she’s found her voice. “It’s been a while.”

_ “Lord _Vader,” Piett sharply corrects, glaring at her. Vader ignores him. 

“You’ve been behaving. Congratulations.”

Her eyes twitch as a wave of indignation crashes into her, but she resolutely shoves it down, concealing it behind a cold expression. She raises a delicate brow. “What? Am I a child now?”

“You act like one.”

“And you don’t? I’ve been your prisoner for definitely over a week now and how many times have you seen me?”

“I was unaware you wanted me to.”

Padmé almost sneers at the obvious smirk in his voice. “Oh, I’m fine. I’m just making sure you’re doing your job. I wouldn’t want Palpatine getting angry with you.”

_ “Sidious!” _ he snaps, jutting a finger in her direction and watching her flinch back. “And I’m here right now. Your _ concern _over my attention to my duties is wholly unneeded.”

“I’m glad,” she huffs, and then turns away, trying to calm her racing heart. To her dismay, Vader continues to speak. 

“You should’ve appreciated the time you had free from me, because I have every intention to use you now. And you _ better _cooperate.”

“I’ll be the picture of compliance,” she says, purposefully slow, and watches as he steps away, yanking his arm back to his side. He crosses them again, the broad line of his shoulders imposing. 

“I will be back later. Don’t try anything while I’m gone.”

_ How can I? _she thinks spitefully, keeping her gaze locked on her trembling fingers as he marches forward, the door hissing shut behind him. 

Taking deep breaths doesn’t help, and she can barely control herself when she hisses between her teeth, snatching her threadbare blanket off her padded bench and hurling it to the floor. Right where he stood.

“Dammit!” she curses, wishing he could hear it. Wishing it could hurt. 

* * *

Personnel practically leap out of the way as Vader storms into his office. The door slides shut behind him, leaving him to blissful isolation, but he can’t even appreciate it. Instead, he strides over to his desk and snatches up a datapad, immediately opening up a familiar file. He sits down, already half-enraged. 

The Jedi was _ infuriating. _She was haughty and bold, and her dogged attempts at feigning diplomacy with him reminded Vader unnervingly of Sidious. 

He takes several breaths, forcing himself to calm, before swiping his hand across the device. Files upon files of her personal information littered the screen. All classified, accessible now only to those in high-ranking positions. Sidious made sure to be thorough when he destroyed the reputation of the Jedi, scrubbing the holonet clean of any mention of the Order being a friend to the Republic, and then doubly so for the Empire. 

Anything from holovids to official documents flash across the screen, vying for his attention. There were even gossip articles written under her name, paired along with candid photos that featured her polite, but strained smile towards whatever camera was pointed to her. He taps on one, his eyes skimming the title. 

_ “Potential scandal?! Jedi Knight seen canoodling with love-struck Senator.” _

_ “‘Hot for Jedi?’ What does Padmé Naberrie think of her post-Clone War fame?” _

With every sordid article, Vader’s disgusted sneer stretches further across his face. There’s hundreds, if not _ thousands _of similar links, all tracing back to the same girl. 

Scoffing, he clicks out of the gossip columns, refraining from tossing the datapad back onto the table. He doesn’t know why he’s so irritated, this should’ve all been obvious. The girl was no Jedi. She was hardly even a warrior. She was a _ celebrity, _a talking-piece, someone far more likely to be lumped in with the likes of models and holovid actresses than anyone even vaguely respectable. No wonder her fighting was so sub-par during their battle. No wonder she’s so delightfully afraid of him. From the beginning, she’s been completely and utterly out of her depth. 

It grows increasingly apparent with every sleazy, vapid title he forces himself to read. With every photo taken of her face or her drab clothing. Her master, of all people, probably had more self-respect. 

At the thought of Kenobi, Vader’s foul mood somehow manages to worsen. During the Clone Wars, his name had become inescapable— even Sidious took a perverse delight in mentioning him whenever possible. And now he continued to plague him, but instead of shoddy propaganda shots and _ harrowing _ tales of his bravery, it was in the form of his protege. His _ padawan, _ who’s proved herself to be just as disdainful.Vader’s not completely sure who he despises more.

After skimming a few more articles, and saving some official documents that looked promising, he finally tosses down the datapad. Anger and a vague disgust still curls it’s way through his veins, but he forces himself to wave them away, unwilling to be sapped of his composure. Unfortunately, that was all the Jedi seemed inclined to do. 

He stands up, straightening the hood hanging over his face, before starting towards the door. He unclips the comlink attached to his belt.

“Captain, prepare the prisoner for interrogation before you leave.”

* * *

“So,” Padmé says, staring uncertainly at the contingent of Stormtroopers standing in front of her. “I take it that it’s not dinner time yet?”

“Get up,” Vader commands, a pair of cuffs in hand. She feels an instinctive prick of fear. 

“Why? What’s going on?” 

“It’s time to make use of you.”

Use of _ what? _Padmé doesn’t understand. She probably knew as much about the happenings of the galaxy as they did; even less, maybe! This confusion and stark dread must be apparent on her face, because Vader snaps again, even louder, “Get. _ Up.” _

She does, haltingly, trying to hide the trembling of her knees as her feet touch the ground. His free hand finds her upper-arm, jerking her into a standing position and keeping her in place as a Stormtrooper binds the cuffs around her wrist. Just as quickly, another Trooper opens the door, and Vader starts walking, forcing her to jog her way down the hallway. A plea for him to slow down almost makes its way past her lips, but she keeps her mouth shut, unwilling to beg him for anything.

Within minutes, they reach another door. Vader punches a code into a padlock, causing the thick slab of durasteel to slowly side open. When he forces her inside, she notices that it’s a small room, almost bare except for a single chair and a hovering, blinking droid. Her heart sinks to her feet.

“What is this?” she breathes.

Vader pushes her towards the chair. “You should know.”

Her lips tighten as two Stormtroopers begin to strap her inside. So an interrogation then. She should’ve known. It was par for the course whenever one was captured by the enemy.

The fact that this was old hat for her should’ve been a comfort, but it wasn’t. Even back during the war, she hated it. She hated the pain and the torture and the way that Separatist bandits would leer at her from the bars of whatever cage they stuffed her into, threatening her just to see if she would shake. 

She never did. 

And she doesn’t allow herself to now, keeping a steady gaze on Vader as he looms in front of her, no doubt glaring beneath his hood. Like muscle memory, her mind falls into a familiar, serene state. A defense mechanism Obi-Wan had drilled into her almost immediately after the war began. 

Still, when he activates the droid and she hears a long, droning whir, she has to bite back a wince. 

“How did you escape?” he asks, although it’s hardly a question.

“My ship.” There’s a pulse of something in the air: a building irritation that makes her realize that obstinance probably isn’t the best method to survive this interaction. She rectifies herself immediately. “I was at the Temple. I felt something was wrong and I heard screaming. I managed to make it towards the hangar bay and I fled on my ship.”

“Of everyone in the Temple, you were the only one to survive. No one tipped you off?”

The idea disgusts her. “No one _ knew. _And if someone told me what was going to happen, I would’ve told Master Yoda.”

Another flicker of rage, strong enough to stun her. Did he know him? And if so, how?

“How long did you hide?” he demands, his words clipped. 

“Two years. You know that.”

“Did you receive help?”

“No. No, never. I… I couldn’t risk getting anyone hurt.”

By his sides, his fingers twitch, as if moving to clench into fists. Another wave of anger floods the room, lined heavily with disbelief. “Don’t lie to me,” he rumbles, the words vibrating into her.

She shakes her head decisively. “I’m not. _You’re _ the only person I’ve been communicating with regularly since the Purge happened.” And, _ oh, _the irony of it. The one being in the galaxy she’s had even a semblance of a conversation with is the same one that forced her into isolation in the first place. She would laugh if it didn’t hurt so much. If it didn’t make her want to cry. 

“I don’t believe you,” he says shortly, and it snaps her right back into the defensive. “You were in space for two years, by yourself, in the most conspicuous ship I could think of. And to make it worse, you’re _ you: _a poster-girl, a piece the Republic used as war propaganda. Do you honestly expect me to believe that no one recognized you?”

“Clearly someone did!” she snaps. “Or did you forget how I came to be in your custody in the first place.”

“One person!” She instinctively flinches back as he stalks closer, holding up a finger. “One person in two years. The odds of that are either impossible or someone here is a _ fool.” _

_ Yes. You, _ she wants to hiss, but won’t. She desperately clings to her pride and composure. “You forget who I am. I was a Jedi before I was Republic propaganda. I was fighting in a war from the time I was _ seventeen. _I know a lot more than you think I do.”

“Yes,” he says, but his tone is still dark, still taunting. Her words did little to assuage him. “That reminds me. What was your master called? The Negotiator?”

“What does he have to do with this?”

“You were close to him, weren’t you? I bet he taught you many things.”

Her wild gaze follows him as he circles her, his movements sharp and purposeful like a stalking predator. Through her binds, she clenches her fists to keep her hands from shaking. 

“Like how to deceive people. How to trick them. How to lie with a straight face. Isn’t that what negotiating is?”

“Wrong!” she spits. “Obi-Wan wasn’t like that!” _ Your master was. _

He scoffs, a low, cynical sound that sends an ice-cold shiver racing down her spine. “I don’t believe you.”

“Then why am I here then?” she demands. “To be ridiculed? I deserve more-“

“You deserve _ nothing.” _Padmé gasps as he comes striding towards her, his gloved-hand hanging between them. She can’t see his face, but she senses, somehow, that his lips— _ if he has any, _ she thinks mutinously— are pulled into a snarl. His words come out harsh and clipped. “You forget your place. You are a prisoner. You have no rights, no freedoms, no space to make any demands. _ I _ decide what happens to you. I decide when you eat, I decide when you breathe, I decide when you _ die.” _

Her mouth is slack, her chest heaving with the force of her pants. Her entire body feels numb with the onset of panic, clinging to her desperately as she furiously attempts to push it down. To save face. She can’t allow him to sense her weakness. 

“Palpatine ordered you not to kill me,” she asserts shakily, watching him inch closer. His heavy boots must’ve startled the ground beneath them. She can feel the vibrations of it chattering her teeth. 

“You don’t need your limbs to speak,” he hisses, and even without being in her space, his presence smothers her, making it hard to breathe. She keeps her lips glued together as he waves his palm over her face, holding back a squeak when she feels him push into her mind. Despite how many times she’s experienced it, even at the hand of her own master, a mind probe never gets any easier. It was just as disarming, just as violating. It always left her feeling as though she’s been skinned raw. 

He pokes and prods, forgoing gentleness as he tears through the files of her mind, digging through memories and plunging into emotions. She sees herself just minutes after the Purge, sobbing like an infant on the cold floor of her ship. She sees herself as a youngling, crying because Master Yoda ordered her to leave behind the feral newborn tooka she had managed to nurse back to health. She hears the aristocratic lilt of her master’s voice, lowered to a whisper and chiding. _ “You never learned how to let things go, have you, Padmé?”_

A ragged gasp tears from her throat when he abruptly pulls out, her skull pounding with his absence. Dried tears cling to her cheeks, leaving the taste of salt thick on her lips. She blinks rapidly just to stave the last few away. 

In front of her, Vader is both disgusted and unsatisfied. A prick of vindication stabs through her at the thought. He must’ve known that she wasn’t lying. 

He jabs a finger at her. She’s too numb to flinch. 

“I will get this information out of you if it’s the last thing I do.” He turns to a Stormtrooper. “Take her back to her cell.”

“Yes, sir!”

Padmé’s knees almost give out when her feet hit the ground. The Trooper at her side reluctantly steadies her, gripping her arm to hold her up. She forces her legs to stop trembling, taking heavy steps as they lead her out of the room. Despite the fact that she knows that Vader gained next to nothing from her today, she can’t help but feel a leaden hopelessness weighing down her body. 

The burn of his gaze at her back doesn’t help either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly i know the scene where vader comes across tabloids of padme may seem campy, but it made me laugh writing it😔 also i feel like it definitely has basis in the real world. 
> 
> also, if you’ve noticed i made padme a bit younger in this story! not because of the age difference between them (i actually quite like that she’s older) but more because i wanted them to be in the same age bracket for ✨reasons that may become apparent later✨
> 
> i hope you guys enjoyed!! <333


End file.
